What is Love medicine? Love Medicine is a fiction novel by Louise Erdrich. The book is based on Native American stories, which cover three generations, fifty years, several families, and there are many relationships. Love Medicine is a collection of short fiction stories of “people that are living on Chippewa reservation in North Dakota”. Louise Erdrich makes the story with use of flashback. Love Medicine is not on particularly one theme but there are some stories on other themes such as, true identity, religion, family, love etc. Love Medicine is the creative formation of stories and characters which allow for the original creation of love.
Each character exposes his or her individuality different than the other characters and their beliefs. There are many internal and external conflicts between characters. The characters and relationships of conflicts make this story very effective. Louise Erdrich uses protagonist and antagonist characters too. There are many characters but I enjoy Marie Kashpaw is character the most. In my opinion, “Marie Kashpaw is the most powerful and positive character in comparison with other characters in Love Medicine by Louise Erdrich, because Marie is ambitious, brave, wise wife and good person”.
In the book, many characters are not sympathetic such as Lulu, Nector but Marie is a sympathetic character. First, Marie Kashpaw was Marie Lazzare before marrying Nector Kashpaw. Many people have ambitions for their career, money, education, luxuries life but Marie is none of this. Marie is the person who has ambitions to have a better identity than her family has. Marie’s family is known for alcoholisms, idleness and horse thieves, but Marie knows from a young age that she wants a different kind of life.
She sets out determined to make a name for herself, despite the limit placed on her by having a poor family background. Marie is beginning to define herself; she tries to find her identity in religion, and seems determined to prove her worthiness through prayer. Marie’s mind is very clear, what she wants is to be a nun. At fourteen years old, when she decides to enter the Catholic school system, even though she is the only Native American girl there. As a young girl, Marie aspires to rise to the stature of the nuns who live in the convent on the hill. This is how; Marie is ambitious to find her new identity.
In addition, Marie’s braveness comes out the way she deals with Sister Leopoldawho is an old grizzled nun with an uncanny sixth sense for the presence of the devil. When Marie arrives and starts taking classes, she faces total opposition from Sister Leopolda. Sister Leopolda sometimes sniffs devil out of the dark corners of her classroom. Marie spends time performing chores for the nun but Sister Leopolda teaches her that she will always struggle to keep the devil out of her heart. Marie’s success at the convent is dependent on her relationship with Sister Leopolda.
For Marie, her struggle against the nun is a larger than life; battle of good versus evil. Marie believes that she stands out from the rest of the students. What begins as Marie’s fear of the devil’s influence becomes a more complex understanding of how a fear can coexist with desire. Sister Leopolda soon becomes a stand in for the devil as she and Marie face off with each other. At first, Marie is abused only mentally by Sister Leopolda, but later on she is physically abused. For example, one day Sister Leopolda stabs Marie through the hand and then tries to hit her with a blow to her head.
The power struggle ends with Marie as the victor. This incident shows how bravely Marie fights with Sister Leopolda. After this scene Marie leaves the convent, because she is realizes that Sister Leopolda is ruining her life by abusing her physically and mentally. When Marie is leaving the convent, she meets Nector who is shooting geese that he brings to the nuns. But when he sees Marie, he thought Marie is stealing the pillowcase, therefore he throws Marie to the ground and he starts to do a sexual act which turns into marriage.
But later on Nector realizes that he really loves Lulu who does not have a shortage of men in her life. This realization of Nector becomes a problem for Marie. Therefore, Nector start to spend more time at bars, unless Marie comes out to take all his money away. Marie’s responsibilities become double when Nector pays less attention to his family. Being a wise wife, she knows how to handle the family with many children. Marie is in the midst of plotting a better life for her husband. The image of the drunken still chases her. She faces the same problem in her husband with different an attitude.
When she gets married to Nector, she knows she is getting a man with brains, and she is determined not to let him destroy that with alcohol. Her aim is to convert Nector from a drunken man who will bring honor to her family. Therefore, she has to tie Nector to the bed with ropes and dump all of his liquor down the drain. Instead of fighting with Nector, she tries to stop him from taking alcohol. One day, Marie gets a letter from Nector that he is leaving her and going with another woman named, Lulu. Instead of being furious, she keeps silent and waits for her husband.
When Nector comes home, Marie does not ask any questions, but give her hand to start a new life with him which shows that Marie really loves Nector. Being a wise wife, Marie never complains to the Nector about her problems. Moreover, Marie is a good person. One day, Marie’s mother and brother in law come to her door; they bring nine year old June Morrissey with them. June is a daughter of Lucille, Marie’s sister who has died. June’s father is not able to take care of June. Marie takes pride in helping her favorite sister’s daughter, even though it a greater sacrifice and demands more of her time and attention.
Marie really cares for June as she knows that June’s father, who is a drunk, could not take care of his own daughter. Moreover, Marie and Nector are grown old now, they are living in the same senior home that Lulu is living. Lulu is Lulu; she is older though she tried to catch Nector’s attention. According to Lulu, Marie is a respected wife. After Nector’s death Lulu goes for eye surgery. She needs someone to put eye drops in her eyes. Here, Marie proves that she is a good person forever, when she helps Lulu Lamartine who is an ex-girl friend of her husband.
Marie makes a surprising first proposal of friendship by volunteering to care for Lulu after her eye surgery. It seems Marie does have a problem with Lulu and that is why she does offer for friendship. These examples shows that Marie is not only takes care of others, she never thinks about herself. In conclusion, Marie Kashpaw is a powerful character and positive character. She tries to take everything as positive and tries gets success. She believes in good and strong relationships. Though there are many people who try ruining Marie’s life such a Sister Leopolda, Nector, Lulu.
She struggles for what she wants; her true identity, and her true love. She really had a hard converting Nector’s mind from Lulu. Marie shows her positive sides when Nector comes back from Lulu and gives her hand to start new life. Because of Nector, many problems have been created in Marie’s life. For me, Nector is a negative character and not concerned character in Love Medicine. Nector accurately connects with different Indian families on the reservation; he marries Marie Lazarre Morrissey but never loses his passion for Lulu. Marie who loves Nector and wants to have real love from.
Nector but Nector is the person who does not know the meaning of real love. Nector loves the person (Lulu) who has many children from many men. He is not sure till death whom he loves most; Marie or Lulu. Moreover, he really doesn’t care for children therefore Marie has to deal with them all of the time. Nector ruins Marie’s life though Marie does not want regretted word from him. Marie’s whole life changes when Nector goes back forth, looking for true love. Being a good wife, she really cares for her husband who is a drunker. She does not want to spoil the whole family.
I also believe that her love is only one sided but it is truly real love. Because of her true love, she never complains about her life or problems, she just fights against it. After dealing with Sister Leopolda, she really knows how to fight with real problems. Marie never gets support from her family or her husband. She fights against the problems with her own courage. I strongly believe that Marie is a real fighter. According to me, Marie is a good sister, good wife and a good person. In short, she is very sympathetic character. Work Cited Erdrich Lousie. Love Medicine. New York: Henry Hold And Company, Inc, 1984. Print.