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Louise Erdrich Tracks Sparknotes

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In the novel Tracks by Louise Erdrich (1968-present), she writes about the many different ways characters may respond to trauma caused by colonialism. The author Louise is a member of the Turtle Mountain band of Ojibwe. Her father is of German-American descent and her mother is of Chippewa descent so she was exposed to both white culture and Native American culture. She has won numerous awards for her various books. In this novel, she writes about the members of the Chippewa Tribe and how they have had to live and adapt to this new environment caused by colonialism. Lousie integrates this idea of colonialism and change by turning it into trauma for many of the characters in the book and each character she writes about has a different response …show more content…

She wrote these different responses and assigned them to characters with different circumstances compared to others. For example, Nanapush was an elder so he displayed resistance because he felt like it was his responsibility as an elder to preserve the culture of his tribe. Pauline wanted to feel powerful and wanted attention so she assimilated into the more dominant and favored culture because she felt like she had a greater chance of being accepted. Fleur responded in violence because of the atrocious acts that happened to her. Louise wants the readers to take away that colonialism is not simply just one nation taking over another nation. She wanted the readers to be aware of how and why colonialism causes trauma. She wanted to showcase the devastating effects of colonialism from the side of the Native Americans as that is where the effects can be shown the most prominently. Louise is expressing to us readers how colonialism can cause severe trauma to people and that people can respond to that trauma in many different ways. A major point that Louise wants us to understand is that not only is colonialism this group versus this group, but we can also see members of a group turn against each other like we saw Pauline did. Colonialism can make both the lives of a demographic worse by the discrimination but it can also turn friends into enemies very easily depending on how they cope with the inflicted wounds upon their people. Colonization showcases that throughout history people have only cared about themselves and what they want and we should learn from the mistakes that people throughout history have

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Erdrich’s Tracks is a novel of reconstructing the native’s losing cultural identity. Catherine Rainwater remarks that “Erdrich seems deliberately to cultivate a general readership by crafting multiple points of entry into her texts, then proceeding to educate the audience more specifically in particulars of American Indian history, culture, cosmology, and epistemology” (2005: 273). It is a literature of survival and resistance in the face of cultural hegemony and all crises of the Native Americans. The struggle to preserve the Chippewa culture from being assimilated to the mainstream American culture is clearly presented through the characters Nanapush and Fleur. Erdrich depicts how many ways the native revive

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Louise Erdrich’s novel Tracks, serves as a tool to awaken the past of the people that have been forgotten, and their culture that is no longer thought about or misconstrued. This novel offers insight and powerful knowledge into the rich lives of Native Americans. Erdrich uses specific characters in her novel to show the culture and religion of one specific group of Native Americans. Tracks connects the reader to the lives and struggles of Ojibwa people by telling the story of three main characters, Nanapush, Fleur, and Pauline, as they fight against modern colonialism. Nanapush and Fleur demonstrate their adherence to traditional Ojibwa religion and culture by doing traditional forms of medicine and connecting as one with the land, while Pauline demonstrates her rejection to Ojibwa religion and culture by denying her Native American religion and

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