Louise Erdrich’s Love Medicine : The Completion of Returning Home through Visions and Love

Louise Erdrich’s Love Medicine : The Completion of Returning Home through Visions and Love

In Love Medicine, Louise Erdrich uses a peculiar narrative technique, which evokes the Native American storytelling tradition. By way of the creation of an unfamiliar style of multiple perspectives, she wants to achieve a dual effect; that is, she not only demands of the reader to rethink the fixed idea of the tribe’s tradition and culture, but also controls her enmity against whites and their dominant culture, without sacrificing her task as a Native American writer. With this unique narrative technique, Love Medicine is focused on impressive female characters. June’s presence without her voice after her death pervades the whole novel where, in contrast with Lulu’s unvanquished valiance for keeping her identity and culture, Marie becomes an unforgettable figure through her devotion, love, and forgiveness for her family and rivals, even though she has a worldly ambition to improve her status. Erdrich focuses on Albertine and Lipsha as representatives of the younger generation. Especially, Lipsha accomplishes self-awareness of true love through failed magic. Therefore, in consequence, Lipsha’s gaining vision and love enables him to acknowledge his father’s―as well as his mother’s―identity and complete June’s return home through his understanding and forgiveness.