24 pages • 48 minutes read
Louise ErdrichA modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
“Fleur” explores issues of agency, authorship, and authenticity in the craft of storytelling. The stories of Fleur’s drownings which open “Fleur” combine hearsay, myth, and fact, as Erdrich establishes a storytelling tradition within the community at Lake Turcot, employing magical realism, a technique which combines fantastical elements with reality. Pauline presents her personal experience of discovering Fleur’s tracks shifting into those of a clawed animal as fact to support the semi-mythical presentation of Fleur by the community elders. However, by the end of the story the tribal knowledge is called into question explicitly. Pauline notes that there are still stories about Fleur and her baby and that the “old men talk” about her (189), but Pauline notes that they get the story “wrong” because “they only know they don’t know anything” (189). Erdrich complicates the magical realist presentation by introducing an element of speculation, positioning Pauline—and thereby the narrative voice of the story—as the ultimate authority on Fleur’s semi-mythical personhood. Reinforcing Pauline’s authority, Pauline pivots early on from the subjective knowledge of the tribe to facts she alone knows about Fleur’s time in Argus, writing “that’s what this story is about” to indicate a separation between events (178).
By Louise Erdrich
Antelope Woman
Louise Erdrich
Future Home of the Living God
Louise Erdrich
LaRose
Louise Erdrich
Love Medicine
Louise Erdrich
Shadow Tag
Louise Erdrich
The Beet Queen
Louise Erdrich
The Bingo Palace
Louise Erdrich
The Birchbark House
Louise Erdrich
The Game of Silence
Louise Erdrich
The Leap
Louise Erdrich
The Master Butchers Singing Club
Louise Erdrich
The Night Watchman
Louise Erdrich
The Painted Drum
Louise Erdrich
The Plague Of Doves
Louise Erdrich
The Red Convertible
Louise Erdrich
The Round House
Louise Erdrich
The Sentence
Louise Erdrich
The Shawl
Louise Erdrich
Tracks
Louise Erdrich