Making the “Queen” in Louise Erdrich’s The Beet Queen

The Beet Queen is the product of Louise Erdrich’s hope to become not just a Native American writer but an American writer. In the novel, almost all of the characters are white and the main setting is a fictional white city, Argus. The lack of both Native Americans and their sufferings under the dominant culture brought harsh criticism from Leslie Marmon Silko. However, Erdrich’s identity as a Native American and her critical perspective on white culture never disappear, even in this novel. Her efforts to present us with a new society begin with the breakup of a white family, and are followed by her questioning the conventional, biased ideas of gender and race. Eventually, the major role in a new society is left to a mixed-blood family, based on the love of a mother-daughter relationship, harmonizing different races and genders altogether. And, as a member of the new family, the daughter, Dot, finally realizes her mother’s love and matures. Thus, in spite of her refusal to be coronated as the beet queen in a conventional sense, Dot becomes the real queen, the leader of the future society.