Fleur Pillager is a symbol of female sexuality and mystique throughout Erdrich’s Chippewa saga. She draws the great practitioner of old Chippewa ways, Eli Kashpaw, to court her; she is rumored to have sexual relations with the water spirit Misshepeshu; she retains some form of magical and sexual power from the spirits; and her daughter…
Tag: Louise Erdrich
Fleur by Louise Erdrich – Setting
North Dakota in the Early Twentieth Century West of Minnesota, on the southern border of Canada, and within the large area of the central United States known as the Great Plains, North Dakota has an arid climate with extreme temperatures and a rural economy. Sparsely populated until the late-nineteenth century, the state has a history…
Fleur by Louise Erdrich – Literary Devices
Magic Realism Pioneered by post–World War II Latin American writers such as Jorge Luis Borges and Gabriel García Márquez, magic realism is a literary technique in which supernatural elements appear within an otherwise realistic narrative. Magic, spiritual powers, and inexplicable paranormal events all may be elements in a story employing this technique, which tends to…
Fleur by Louise Erdrich – Themes
Female Power One of the most important themes in Erdrich’s story is that of female power. The situation at Kozka’s Meats is somewhat like a battle between the sexes, in which Fleur, Pauline, and Fritzie have their own methods of dealing with a brutish, dangerous group of men. Daring and fearless Fleur is the most…
Fleur by Louise Erdrich – Characters
Tor Grunewald Pauline says as a kind of summary, from an unspecified period of time in the future, that “Power travels in bloodlines, handed out before birth,” which implies that Fleur was responsible for the deaths of the men. She says that now she is about the only one who visits Fleur, who lives on…
Fleur by Louise Erdrich – Summary
“Fleur” begins by stating that Fleur Pillager was only a girl when she drowned in Lake Turcot, which is located in Native American reservation in North Dakota. Two men dive in and save her and, not long afterward, both disappear. Fleur falls in the lake again when she is twenty, but no one is willing…
The Leap by Louise Erdrich – Analysis
Louise Erdrich is known for developing realistic, well-rounded characters whose emotional evolution is subtle yet unmistakable. Her female characters in particular are flawed yet embody a sense of strength, usually dormant until the character is forced to draw upon it for either emotional or physical survival. In the short story ‘‘The Leap,’’ Anna is the…
The Leap by Louise Erdrich – Setting
Erdrich’s Family By 1990, Louise Erdrich had five children, three her husband had adopted prior to marriage and two biological daughters, both of whom were very young at the time ‘‘The Leap’’ was first published. Given these circumstances, motherhood and writing were the two endeavors that required most of Erdrich’s attention. It is quite possible…
The Leap by Louise Erdrich – Narrator, Imagery, Magical Realism
First-Person Narrator Erdrich considers herself a storyteller, and so it is fitting that she tells her stories in first person, that is, using the word ‘‘I,’’ as if she is talking directly to the reader. First person is a more personal way of telling a story; it is the technique used when friends talk to…
The Leap by Louise Erdrich – Themes
Mother-Child Relationships The entire story is a study of the mother-daughter relationship. The narrator credits her mother with her existence even beyond birth, and through recollection, makes clear the ties that bind them together. Although she never directly says it, the way the narrator gives voice to her memory reflects an admiration for her mother….