Redefining The Soldier Archetype through Postcolonial Lenses: A Reading of John Okada’s No-No Boy, Toni Morrison’s Sula, and N. Scott Momaday’s House Made of Dawn

Abstract

This study undertakes a postcolonial analysis of the soldier archetype as depicted in John Okada’s No-No Boy (1979), Toni Morrison’s Sula (1973), and N. Scott Momaday’s House Made of Dawn (1968). A comparative literary approach interrogates how these novels challenge and deconstruct the traditional notions of the soldier as an emblem of patriotism, heroism, and national loyalty. Each protagonist, Ichiro Yamada, Shadrack, Plum, and Abel, embodies the complexities and contradictions faced by racialised and colonised subjects within the United States, whose participation in military service simultaneously signifies coerced loyalty and cultural alienation. The analysis foregrounds themes of trauma, silence, hybridity, and ritual as narrative devices employed to convey the fractured identities of these characters, situating their experiences within the broader context of settler colonialism and internal colonialism. Drawing upon the theoretical frameworks of Frantz Fanon (1952), Homi Bhabha, and Edward Said (1978), the study demonstrates how these figures problematise dominant national discourses and expose the limitations of American citizenship and belonging for marginalised communities. Ultimately, this research contends that these novels subvert the hegemonic soldier archetype and articulate alternative modes of survival and resistance through cultural memory and spiritual reclamation. The findings contribute to the discourse on postcolonial subjectivity, race, and nationalism in American literature, illuminating the soldier as a complex locus for examining the intersections of identity, power, and decolonisation.