The Round House Sparknotes

Louise Erdrich’s The Round House, is a powerful story that follows a thirteen year old boy, Joe, on his path to finding justice for his mother. The novel is written in a retrospective narrative, allowing the reader to gain insight as to how Joe felt while he was searching for justice, as well as how he felt years later. The novel is set 1988, a time when Native Americans were not receiving the justice they deserved for the crimes that were committed against them. In the novel, Joe’s mom, Geraldine, was raped by a white man, but it’s a very slippery slope because law enforcement is unsure whether the crime happened on the reservation or on white land. Because the reservation is its own sovereign territory it is very tricky to decide how to go

Likewise, Joe explains that he “awoke shouting Cappys name…my heart was jumping… I tried to slow down my breathing” (308). In these scenes trauma is arising in Joe from the act of killing Linden. Joe killed Linden for, arguably, a good reason, but that doesn’t mean that what he did was morally right, therefore he does not get away with the satisfaction that comes with knowing that Linden is dead, instead he faces the same trauma anyone else would if they did the same thing whether for a good reason or a bad

As discussed, Joe tried to get justice for his mother, but that wasn’t enough for him, not when there were others on the reservation who weren’t receiving any type of equity on the attacks against them, and so once again he took matters into his own hands, but this time he decided to do it the right way. Joe already had influence from his father since he was a lawyer as well, but the reader can easily assume that the main reason he decided to become a lawyer was because of his mothers attack. The idea of justice will forever be in the back of Joe’s head because of the events that occurred when he was just a boy, but even after everything thing that happened, he decided to make the most of