Narrative Strategies in Louise Erdrichs Love Medicine - Essay Example

Dennis: Love Medicine begins with a death and continues to trace the timely and untimely deaths of members of the community that the novel creates. How does the novel approach death and why does it focus upon it so consistently? You might select a particular example to demonstrate your argument. Chapter 1 in Love medicine opens with June freezing to death on her way home to the reservation. Throughout the novel, various characters suffer emotionally from June’s death. She inhabits an underworld characterized by males and females, her life lacks a foundation, and she feels unwanted and not linked to either the customs, and she cannot blend the custom and her life. She spends her best part of life in strolling into lives of men and women inconsistently. At her tender age, June takes part in the male’s ritual with Eli and dresses like her. Maries looks at the way Junes identifies herself with Eli and remembers how June’s mother neglected this young girl. June does not emulate Eli, and she is never comfortable in the midst of women and mothers. Her marriage with Gordie is shaky, and she is never present for her son. Marie raises her second son, Lipsha, and June watches from a far distance as her son grows. She even fails to secure herself a permanent employment. She feels displaced in her position as female, and she is not aware the challenge she experiences is because of her gender identity. She tries to slot in to a tradition that she cannot fit, and it becomes difficult to link her past with her present life. It is only in death that she finds solace; she can reconcile the past and present. Dennis Storytelling and its importance is a key element of Love Medicine, as the supplementary article by Schultz also details. How do the storytelling elements of the novel develop our understanding of the story's characters and the community that they inhabit? The numerous stories compiled into love Medicine help in portraying the identity of the community represented and interweave the audience into the framework of this large family and its narrations of survival. In understanding, why Schultz relies on storytelling and her review of recognized personal narrative techniques simplifies her emphasis on stories of modern survivors. In the novel, we realize that there is a possibility of narrating the whole story and rewrite it, and retain the identity of the characters. The novel, illustrates the significance of multiple narrators and their role in improving the estrangement of individual characters; how the halfway told and new stories propose a common framework of knowledge that blends characters together and assists individuals and the society familiarize with dynamic environment. Dennis Politics intrude upon the community in Love Medicine; both the politics of the reservation and US politics make important impressions upon the characters and community. Discuss the role of politics (local, national, or both) in the novel. Schultz presents multiple perceptions of two Ojibwe families, and comments to the good things and problems of kingship. Love medicine presents characters whose lives are empowered by qualities of love, but later ruined by the threats of desire and the turbulent politics of reservation. Characters like, Marie, Nector, and Lulu are entangled in an enduring love web characterized by reverberations in duration of three generations. Their offspring’s suffer from past mistakes, and they have to endure the suffering and distress of history. Schultz emphasizes on the association of the whole family. Kashpaws and pillagers once led the community before moving to the reservation. Their heredity and legacy was respectful, but alienated by politics that isolated the community. The Native American politics is a recurring issue, simply because Kashpaw family is self-esteemed as the final hereditary leaders of this community. Even though, politics alienated the community, it also played a significant role in helping others. The pillagers did not have any voice in the society, but politics rescued them. Prompt 4: Tasker: What do you think the hanging of June (22) symbolizes? Where and when do the other characters return to it? What does it say about them and about June? Schultz starts with the story of June on the night she spends a night with the man in the bar then in the morning she walks home for Easter celebrations. However, she freezes on her way home and dies. Louise narrates the book in short stories and the source of the short stories sprouts from the death of June. The stories narrate about the incidences that occur before June dies, and how June’s death affects some of the characters in future. I think June’s death is very symbolic in that, after reading about the death of June, again see how her death affects the life of other characters in the novel, especially her family members in the reservation. The most affected person is his son, king because he becomes wild after the reservation making him go crazy. On the other hand, Albertine tries to bring harmony in the home by cooling things down, but Nector wildness is in an extreme form in  all his incidences in life. There is nothing that to work out well in the rest of the character’s lives. Most of the characters lead a certain life because of the effect they had from June’s death. In addition, I think June’s death symbolizes finding the rest after suffering from the hostile life. June’s life is full of tribulations, and she never experienced any gracious day in her entire life. At her younger age, her mother abandoned her, and since then she disliked her role as a feminine. She even fails to bring her children up, and she believes that, the only way that she would feel accepted and link her customs in life is in the underworld. Prompt 5 Brinson: Native American culture is represented as one of poverty, drunkenness, and vice. Do you think this type of characterization helps the rest of America to understand the suffering of Native Americans, or do you think it contributes to stereotyping? Do you feel this novel is denigrating Native Americans, or simply refute the myth of the “noble savage”? Argue for or against this type of fiction as it reflects on a culture. Schultz argues that Native American has lost it is identity and spiritual characteristics and these aspects alienate the two generations. She claims that the Natives were provided with valueless land which after gaining productivity, it was taken away. The existing generation became assimilated and lost its identity, and their culture and customs are never remembered. In every generation, a certain aspect of culture is lost. In this context, Schultz seems to classify the Native American culture as lost and the existing population as marginalized. Instead of encouraging the Natives to soldier even though they are despised, she exposes them, and I think this does not help them accept their situation, but rather jeopardizes their wellbeing. Schulz is refuting with the myth of noble savage, which should bring an atmosphere of respect to the generations to come. The Native Americans should learn from the downfall and deaths of characters that abandoned their cultures and tried to slot in into new cultures that do not accept them. A relevant example is June, who cannot link her past with the present life after despising her culture. The novel becomes a ‘noble savage ‘stereotype in sensing some understated and not very faint messages about the Native Americans. In other words, the stereotype implies that that the Native Americans require civilization by the American culture. This will help them obtain benefits when assimilated and they will be in a position to serve a role- albeit a submissive one – in the American government that would help fulfill their destiny. Prompt 6 Weathers What a terrible way to live, thinking that any government information or interference is done for nefarious reasons! Who can blame the Chippewa for feeling that way after all is said and done? What do you think? Why? Chippewa is at liberty to claim that the Native Americas are a marginalized community in the American Society. The Native Americans were driven away from their land, and send to unproductive land in South Dakota. If the government was genuine to them, it could return their land and restore their properties. The higher authority snatched from them any valuable thing they had. It is not a terrible thing to think that any government interference is for nefarious reasons. The facts speak for themselves in the manner the Native Americans were treated. Works Cited Schultz, Lydia A. "Fragments and Ojibwe Stories: Narrative Strategies in Louise Erdrich's Love Medicine." College Literature 18.3 (1991): 80-95. Read More