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Indian And The Round House

579 Words3 Pages

The Round House by Louise Erdrich and The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie both examine the relationship between Indians on a reservation and their non-Indian neighbors. Throughout these novels, Indian and non-Indian relationships are punctuated with systems of white supremacy, which manifest both in non-Indians’ ideological belief in their supremacy, and in the material disparity between Indian and non-Indian communities. In The Round House, white superiority is primarily expressed in ideological measure, while The Absolutely True Diary of a Part Time Indian focuses largely on the material sphere, but the themes are not mutually exclusive.
The Round House focuses primarily on the convoluted relationship between Indians and non-Indian neighbors. The plot is centered around the rape of Geraldine, Joe’s mother. Joe is a young Indian who decides it is his job to find and punish his mother’s rapist. This decision takes him on a …show more content…

A pivotal part of the novel is when the Catholic Church Group comes to the reservation in order to Christianize the Indians. This action carries deep currents of white supremacy. Throughout history, especially in American Indian history, White Europeans have made an effort to christianize and civilize what they view as an inferior race or group. The earliest efforts of Spain to colonize the Americas included converting Indigenous populations to Catholicism. Likewise, contemporary Christian churches take mission trips to impoverished, developing areas in order to help the citizens and the community. While the church group never blatantly classifies the camp as a conversion effort, the implications of such activity are present. When the Catholic students come to the reservation for their camp, they imagine the Indians as an inferior group who need their assistance in order to obtain a better

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His path was to convert as many Native Americans as he could to Catholicism. However over his years at the reservation, he realized that he and the other religious figures “were wrong” (Erdrich 239). He was told by multiple Native Americans, like Kasphaw, that their “world is already whipped apart by the white man” (Erdrich 63). Comments like that made Father Damien reflect on observations of the damaging effects of conversion and the white man. The act of conversion resulted in the loss of tradition and identity for the Native Americans.

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1265 Words | 6 Pages

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