Native American Culture In Louise Erdrich's Love Medicine

Salem, being a very religious village, had very harsh consequences for those accused of witchcraft. During John Proctor's courtroom confession of the affair, Abigail continued to lie, denying the occurrence. The group of girls proceeded to cry during the hearing claiming they were freezing. Essentially making their last stand. Clearly Abigail will say or do anything to avoid punishment as she makes her final marks during the trials last legs.

She simultaneously loves and resents her children because, while she is their mother, she feels that they have taken away her freedom and self-purpose. As Edna journeys in her awakening, she strives to find meaning for herself as Edna, not her children's mother. To prove she is more than just a mother, she distances herself from normal motherly responsibilities. “He reproached his wife with her inattention, her habitual neglect of the children. If it was not a mother's place to look after children, whose on earth was it?”(Chopin, 15) Edna's neglect of her children stems from others expectations for her to submit to and look after her

Despite representing Sethe’s life after slavery, Sethe’s inability to both forgive and release herself from her guilt sees her desperate attempts to veil it with a love for Denver that Paul D claims is “too thick” (Morrison, 2007: 203). Memories of her dead daughter are thus both an implement of healing and a tool of masochism. Sethe’s forces her into a kind of stasis; an interloper that prevents her from moving on from her haunted past. But, unlike her mother, eventually “Denver prevents the past from trespassing on her life” (Ayadi, 2011: 266) and becomes a transformed female figure. With the introduction of a long-lost friend of Sethe’s from her days at the slave yard, Sweet Home, Paul D at first appears to be the liberator of Sethe from the shackles of her actions and the heavy weight of not only her child’s death.

She symbolizes evil in the sense that she is born through sin and therefore she represents the punishment that God inflicts on Hester's adulterous act. Pearl also symbolizes the guilt that her parents are experiencing. She defies the puritans' law by being cheerful when she is associating with nature instead of suffering. Another way in which pearl symbolizes punishment is the fact that she keeps pestering and bothering her mother. “‘Hold thy peace, dear little Pearl!’ whispered her mother.

Morrison does not depict a perfect bond between Sethe and Denver. Although Sethe does not always communicate with Denver, the daughter still feels her mother’s emotions as something very subtle, almost supernatural. Denver is neglected by her mother and her loneliness is more apparent than before. Moreover the former bond between mother and daughter is broken and it shows slavery destroyed Sethe’s possibilities to have a normal relationship with anyone. She becomes the sole provider of the family when her husband left as a result of slavery.

When the girl starts challenging the maternal principles by disclosing her lesbian tendencies, the mother decides to adopt extremes remedial measures, thus turning into the archetypal character of the witch. While this strategy allows her to control her daughter’s behaviour, it destroys the reciprocal trust that links the two female characters. The mother is so determined not to give up on her plans for Jeanette’s future that she decides to turn the whole religious community against the girl, and to physically punish her through starvation and exhausting exorcisms in order to save her daughter’s soul and her own dreams. At this point, the mother seems to be willing to distinguish between Jeanette ‘the Wilful Sinner’, who rejected her teachings and betrayed her publicly, and Jeanette ‘the Perfect Missionary’, the holy instrument she created for the Lord. The maternal aggressive attitude profoundly affects the girl’s trust in the maternal figure.

She witnessed her community become destroyed by Indians, people whom she refers to as "barbarous creatures,"(238) "murderous wretches" (236) "heathen,"(236) "ravenous beasts," (238) and "hell-hounds." (237) Rowlandson never questions her faith in God throughout the rough times she is going through, uncertain of her survival. When she and her daughter are wounded and separated from her family, instead of questioning why God would do such a horrible thing to her, she interprets her experiences as signs from God. As a reference, she mentions that "[she has] thought since of the wonderful goodness of God to [her] in preserving [her] in the use of [her] reasons and senses, in that

We also learn that Mr ___’s late wife was killed as she was stepping out of church thus the church is unable to protect women who look up to God to help them endure the abuse they suffer through. Through the use of this image, Walker implies that Celie’s letters, wishes and hopes falls on deaf ears. Eventually, towards the end of the novel, Celie’s faith in God is no longer intact. This is because she notices that her wishes and the struggles she faces are because of what was given to her by Him. Celie also tells us that God is a man and therefore, because of his gender and the abuse she faced from other men, she deems God as just like them as she

Aminata was forced to push her religion aside. Through all the horrible things she had to endure, Aminata’s kidnappers forced her to question her religion and her faith in Allah. Throughout her life, she met with people from various religions, and was exposed to Christianity from Georgia and Daddy Moses, and Judaism from Solomon Lindo, all of which confused Aminata and made her further question her regards to her religion. A shading technique was used where the colour became fainter in the centre, to represent the gradual loss of Aminata’s religion. However, colour is still slightly visible, to represent that Aminata never fully lost her faith in God, but it became a mere shadow of what it once

This symbolizes her realization of being trapped for so long, and her desire now to free herself. However, because society is cruel and who never approve of a woman so independent, she creeps around the room to hide her escape. When John arrives at the nursery-like room, he sees what has become of his wife. His wife explains she has ‘gotten out, in spite of you and Jane,’ before John faints and his wife continues to creep around the room, trying her best not to step on the fallen body. In conclusion, the narrator of the Yellow Wallpaper, is what happened to a woman in an oppressed society.

And left there, in the cold. “We still live, Aminata of Bayo, We have crossed the water. We have survived.” (PG136) Aminata’s friend Chekura tells her this in an attempt to comfort her. Aminata is upset she says, “We have lost our homeland, we have lost our people.” (PG 136) She feels lost and scared of the future, because she has lost everything that has ever meant anything to her. She attempted to pray as her papa did, but is warned not to, because other home landers had been beaten over praying and keeping their faith.

Lee uses a somewhat background character to show this in her work. Mrs. Dubose, an elderly neighbor nearing the end of her life, “ was a morphine addict,” but always intended “ to break herself [free of it] before she died” (178). Often times Jem would receive her cold remarks while passing by her house, thinking her primitive and rude, never understanding her hidden constant battle. Upon her death however, he learned that behind all of her snarkiness she was a person with integrity who did not want to be tied down by a worldly substance, and began to see Mrs. Dubose as a person to be respected. Readers in today’s world know how widespread addiction is, and can now see the advantages to looking closer in order to find the true qualities that define the individual.