Pauline By Louise Erdrich Analysis

Unlike Nanapush and Fleur, Louise Erdrich uses the character of Pauline to demonstrate the rejection of Ojibwa religion and culture. Throughout the novel, Pauline is known as a liar and troublemaker who tries her best and hardest to single handedly destroy Ojibwa life, religion, and culture. For example, in the novel, Pauline had “bothered [her] father into sending [her] south, to the white town. [She] had decided to learn the lace-making trade from the nuns” (Erdrich, 14). Pauline is asking her dad to send her south away from the other Native Americans, and more importantly, away from the Ojibwa religion. In this part of the novel, Erdrich best conveys Pauline’s rejection of Ojibwa religion by showing how the efforts she would go through in order to separate herself from the Ojibwa way of life. Pauline has rejected this lifestyle to such great amounts that she is willing to move
It is very evident in the novel that Pauline is not very fond of Ojibwa people, and let alone of the way that they live. For example, Pauline always found a way to call herself white, as opposed to Native American. In the novel Pauline states that she was “delighted to remover the hindrance” and that she was “not one speck of Indian but wholly white” (Erdrich, 137-138). The first passage illustrates how Pauline came clean to the convent that she was in fact Native American and was proud to relieve herself of such a “hindrance”. The second passage explains how Pauline believed God was telling her that she was in fact white. These two passages demonstrate internal racism from Pauline because she refuses to acknowledge the Ojibwa people as Native Americans or simple Ojibwa. Instead she continues to refer to them as Indians. Also, Pauline tried extremely hard to get rid of her actual race and convert into a whole new