Medicine texts : ceremony, Indian killer, and the education of the non-native reader

Both Leslie Marmon Silko and Sherman Alexie recognize that they write for a\ud mainstream audience unfamiliar with the Native American traditions from which\ud their novels draw. This thesis project delineates the way in which their novels,\ud Silko???s Ceremony and Alexie???s Indian Killer, work with the non-Native reader.\ud Ceremony works hard to change the reader???s modes of thinking, transparently\ud educating readers in non-Westem modes of thinking to produce a hybrid\ud community of readers. Indian Killer, on the other hand, works against the non-\ud Native reader in a reverse-colonization of a Western genre, fooling the reader into\ud believing a social critique is a familiar mystery thriller. Though their methods\ud differ, both texts take pains to educate non-Native readers and promote a positive\ud cultural change