63 pages • 2 hours read
Louise ErdrichLaRose
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2016A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Themes
The Ubiquity of Violence
Throughout the novel, violence or the threat thereof plagues the characters. Part of this threat of violence is tied to the very setting of the novel. When Romeo reflects on the televised politics of the War on Terror, he thinks about the proximity with which they all live to violence. “Everybody in North Dakota lived next door to a weapon of mass destruction. Right down the road, a Minuteman missile stored in its underground silo was marked only by a square of gravel and a chain-link fence above” (295). This violence does not represent merely the harm of a physical body but rather complete annihilation. Romeo seems nonchalant in his consideration of this proximity to extermination, as though this potential for unconscionable violence is something all people must encounter. This attitude reflects the history of extermination that many of the characters have been subjected to as Native Americans.
The author includes historical documents that reference this extermination within the novel, weaving nonfiction articles that espouse social opinions within the structure of the narrative. The author incorporates a real 1891 newspaper op-ed written by the Wizard of Oz’s author Frank Baum: “Our only safety depends on the total extermination of the Indians. Having wronged them for centuries we had better, in order to protect our civilization, follow it up by one more wrong and wipe these untamed and untameable creatures from the face of the earth” (71). The author’s usage of real newspaper articles demonstrates the commonly held opinions prevalent throughout American society. This brings a gravity to the threat of violence; violence and annihilation become something that can no longer be referenced in the abstract. Both represent real, historical threats to the native American populace. The reality of these threats then sharply contrasts with Romeo’s aforementioned blasé reference to weapons of mass destruction. The majority of the American populace has not been required to deal with the threat of annihilation; in contrast, these threats and the trauma therein represent the stories of many of these characters.
Violence infects every aspect of these characters’ lives, even sex. When Nola considers her options, violence comes to the forefront of her decision-making process: “she thought maybe she would get the release she needed if she killed Landreaux instead of herself” (112). The author does not question the presence of violence; rather, the characters must consider whether the violence will be upon another or upon themselves. Nola does not question her instinct to react violently; rather, she questions which individual will bear the brunt of this violence. The author constructs an environment where violence becomes superhuman, almost divine. Even the savior LaRose is not exempt from its ubiquity, as he experiences violence first at the hands of his school bully and subsequently on his quest for vengeance against the Fearsome Four. The narrative setting exists as one that requires and perhaps was even constructed in violence and therefore is inextricably linked to this physical threat.
The Interplay Between Native and White
The novel concerns much of the interplay between Native and white cultures and characters, both in modern and historical times. As discussed in the previous thematic section (The Ubiquity of Violence), much of Native American history with white colonizers is underscored by the quest for annihilation and the threat of violence. White society attempted to exterminate Native populations, first via disease and then through the eradication of Native culture via boarding schools. When the first LaRose attends a boarding school, she witnesses the attempted erasure of her culture. “She learned how to sew with a machine. How to imagine her own mouth sewn shut. For speaking Anishinaabe. She learned how to endure being beaten with a board” (200). The author demonstrates how the white conquest of Native peoples was one of often senseless violence as the white teachers attempt to beat the culture out of the first LaRose. In contrast, the author presents the Ojibwe culture as being tied to blood relation, as the culture is typically passed through the matrilineal line. The Ojibwe characters in the novel seem to have power all their own that encompasses every aspect of their being. As opposed to the white identity which is external and forced upon other people, Ojibwe identity seems to come from within, especially through communication and finding one’s voice.
The second LaRose also sees the problems associated with being Ojibwe within a white society when she attends boarding school. The second LaRose is required to memorize a hierarchy of races: “A list of races she had to memorize placed white the highest, then yellow, black, and finally savage. According to the curriculum, her people were on the bottom” (200). The author creates an external society in which whiteness can only prevail through the oppression of other people, especially Native peoples. Again, this hierarchy represents an external implementation that is enforced upon other people, even though none of the characters actually conform to this method of thinking. Passive and oftentimes active resistance to this oppression are witnessed at various points throughout the novel, both in the first LaRose’s symbolic shedding of white clothing after she leaves boarding school and in the escape attempt of Landreaux and Romeo. Because whiteness is externalized, it becomes something that can be escaped from or something that a character can choose to shed. In contrast, most of these characters simply are Ojibwe, and so their cultural identity always lingers underneath the surface of their person. They cannot shake it, no matter how much they are beaten. Their culture simply represents who they are. During the Fearsome Four’s sexual assault on Maggie, the reader witnesses the harrowing reality wherein Native women are often the victims of sexual assault. This assault is then racialized by the Fearsome Four’s derogatory comments towards other Ojibwe characters, like Snow and Josette, implying that the assault might not have occurred if Maggie was not a Native woman. However, the author also depicts the backlash against this assault through the symbolic volleyball game. By winning the game, the Warriors refuse to be annihilated, symbolically repudiating white society’s historical attempt to exterminate Native populations.
Although the interplay between the two cultures is inextricably linked to violence via history, the characters also exist as amalgamations of these two cultures. The author examines the children of the first LaRose and Wolfred: “It was clear they would all possess the energy and sleek purpose of their mother, the steady capability and curiosity of their father, variations of the two combined […] Her children […] spoke English and Ojibwe […] In English there was a word for every object. In Ojibwe there was a word for every action. English had more shades of emotion, but Ojibwe had more shades of family relationships” (191). Although the author places these two cultures on seemingly opposite ends of a spectrum, she also notes that the children—and presumably subsequent offspring—possess aspects of both. Indeed, there seems a kind of power when the two are combined, as though their dual heritage allows for a dualistic existence.
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By Louise Erdrich
