“Family” as a Character in the Novel, “Love Medicine”

Introduction

The two quotations express the values of a family and what they stand in the lives of the natives. Both statements show what family means to the Natives and highly they regard their family members in their lives. On one hand, the conflicting codes that Barton points out could be a very useful point of reference because they show how rhetorically Love Medicine is very much written to be reminiscent of the Chippewa way of life and traditions while also to be accessible to those with no affiliation with the Native American lifestyle (Barton, 17-21).

Discussion

The integration of Christian beliefs, linear time, the nuclear family, and cognitive development offer the non-Native American reader a point of entry into the text that may not have been possible had the text been written solely in the traditional Native American style, employing multiple narratives, cyclic time, and shamanic traditions. Barton concludes that the marginalization of the reader in Erdrich's texts helps them to understand her fundamental intention of showing how "the world takes on the shape of the stories we tell" (Rainwater, 405-22). This may be, but it is my belief that the binaries between Native American and non-Native American concepts and ideals in Love Medicine form a rhetorical way of making the text accessible to the reader of all backgrounds. Other texts by writers of non-American origin utilize this technique by placing characters of different cultures in American settings - including elements that a reader can recognize as similar to something in their own life allows them to identify with characters of cultures completely different than their own (Flavin, 55-64).

For us Christians and Catholics, it is in the family that we are grounded about understanding and practice of our faith, and it is also in the family that we are supported and encouraged to embrace the values taught to us by our faith. It is for this reason that the family can be rightly called a “domestic Church”. The family as a small Church lays the foundation for participation in the life and mission of the bigger Church.

Yet in spite of this clear sociological and theological importance of family in the life of human beings today family life is not only undervalued, but is it consciously and systematically being eliminated. Short sighted, passing, individualistic and selfish considerations of materialism are eroding family values (McKinney, 152-60). The ...