Narrative Point of View in Louise Erdrich's Tracks - MIUSE

Recommendations

Info

Anthony Piccolo It Comes Up Different Every Time: Narrative Point of View in Louise Erdrich‟s Tracks Nanapush‟s chapters are his attempt to help Lulu comprehend and forgive what Fleur has done. Nanapush‟s narration is a dialogue (albeit a one-sided one) rather than a diatribe. Much of the power of Nanapush‟s chapters come from our awareness of the silent yet ever-present Lulu. Writing about the oral, “pure” storytelling aspirations of Love Medicine, Robert Silberman‟s observations are equally valid for Tracks: “This goal would make the literary text appear to be a transcription of a speaker talking in the first-person present tense, addressing a clearly defined listener” (146). Erdrich keeps us aware of Lulu‟s presence by having Nanapush address Lulu directly throughout his narration. He regularly addresses her directly and directs her to pay attention (and thus directs us to pay attention to her). For example: “Granddaughter, . . .” (T 1) “My girl, listen well.” (T 32) “You smile!” (T 40) “This is where you come in, my girl, so listen.” (T 57) “And now you ask how you got to be a Nanapush.” (T 60) “You stood before me, proud, anxious. . . .” (T 128). “People get the grandchildren they deserve: I got you.” (T 180) At no point in any of Nanapush‟s direct addresses to Lulu would a reader be confused and mistakenly assume that he or she is being addressed. However, as Catherine Rainwater notes regarding the “oral storytelling strategies” of Tracks, Erdrich employs a “self-conscious accommodation of cultural „outsiders‟ in the audience, and thus converts „reader‟ to „listener‟” (145). One effect of Nanapush‟s “dialogue” with Lulu rather than a generic “diatribe” and of our “overhearing” of this dialogue is that Nanapush acquires much more of our sympathy as a narrator. He is literally less distant and seemingly more trustworthy than Pauline. If, as Jeanne Rosier Smith puts it, “Tracks presents the competing voices of only two characters, the consummate - 129 -
Anthony Piccolo It Comes Up Different Every Time: Narrative Point of View in Louise Erdrich‟s Tracks trickster old man Nanapush and the unreliable, undesirable Pauline Puyat” (94), we easily choose to side with Nanapush. 5. Pauline: An Alternative View Overall, critics have not been especially sympathetic towards Pauline. Nanapush‟s influence is positive, whereas Pauline‟s is negative: “Just as Nanapush strives through stories and trickery to hold people together, Pauline imagines stories that separate them” (Owens 217). In Pauline‟s own words: “I see farther, anticipate more than I‟ve heard. The land will be sold and divided . . .” (T 204-205). She is untrustworthy and “because of the increasingly bizarre nature of her accounts and the fact that she herself reports her lies, the reader doubts her reliability as a narrator” (Beidler 185). Or, simply, she is an “earnestly obsessive and humorless young woman [who] is portrayed as lacking an ability to ever draw upon laughter‟s saving grace” (Stookey 83), as opposed to Nanapush, an archetypal trickster. As the novel progresses, Pauline becomes increasingly focused on division rather than communion with society. After her religious “conversion,” she emotionally and psychologically distances herself from the Ojibwe reservation community: “„The Indians,‟ I said now, „them.‟ Never neenawind or us. And I soon found it was good that I did” (T 138). Yet, it is not as simple as saying that Nanapush is a reliable narrator who can be trusted and Pauline is not. Pauline refers to Nanapush as “the smooth-tongued artificer” (T 196). In The Last Report on the Miracles at Little No Horse, Father Damien, now in his nineties, responding to questions regarding Pauline (now Sister Leopolda), answers: “I should tell you [Nanapush] was not entirely to be trusted where the Puyats were concerned. He had his motives for spinning a tale to his own ends-- he loved to torment Pauline” (148). Connie A. Jacobs, furthermore, points out that Nanapush and Pauline each “accurately characterize the other, Pauline stressing how much Nanapush loves to talk while Nanapush proclaims that once Pauline opens her - 130 -
Page 2 and 3: PHILOLOGIA 42 (2011) 119-135 1. Int
Page 4 and 5: Anthony Piccolo It Comes Up Differe
Page 18: Anthony Piccolo It Comes Up Differe

Narrative Point of View in Louise Erdrich's Tracks - MIUSE

You also want an ePaper? Increase the reach of your titles

Delete template?

Save as template?