Estelle Louise's Home: A Short Story

An emphasis on family is one of the central facets of Native American culture. There is a sense of community between Native American. Louise Erdrich, a Chippewa Indian herself, writes a gripping bildungsroman about a thirteen year old boy named Joe who experiences all forms of family on the Native American Reserve where he lives. He learns to deal with the challenges of a blood family, witnesses toxic family relationships, and experiences a family-like love from the members of the community. In her book, The Round House, Louise Erdrich depicts three definitions of the word family and shows how these relationships affect Joe’s development into an adult.

The tones go off, there is a scramble for shirts, ties, and boots. Dispatch announces a motor vehicle accident five blocks away. EMTs and Paramedics climb into ambulances. Police are reporting multiple personal injuries. There is a rush of adrenaline through all those involved. The street comes alive with flashing red and white lights and screaming sirens. Ambulances tear down the street to the accident scene. They arrive to find four cars involved in a high-speed collision. There are seven people involved in this particular accident. Additional trucks are requested and the original scene repeats itself as three more teams join the first two at the scene.

As soon as she shut the door, she realizes Clemmie Sue never replaced the broken window on the passenger side. She automatically searches under the seat, finds a large black plastic trash bag, a roll of bright orange duct tape, and creates a makeshift window. While she sits there shivering, glances around, catches a glimpse of a tattered bath towel behind the driver’s seat, and grabs it. Instantly, she begins to remove the moisture from her dress, which clings to her like Saran Wrap. All too soon she discovers three Mother of Peal buttons missing from the front of her dress and her fancy bun no longer fancy and her yellow satin shoes satin encrusted with mud. Using the towel, she removes the thick mud from her shoes. Afterwards, she pulls a bent safety pin, a broken comb, and several rusty hairpins from her purse and begins to repair what the storm had torn

Clemmy Sue Jarvis since birth has lived in the rural southern town, of Wrongberight. One lesson she has learned from her many years of living there is that after four days of intense rainstorms, the roadways without doubt, will transform into a never-ending, slip and slide. Nonetheless, late Saturday afternoon, on the third Saturday in June, she has no choice other than to lift her petite frame into the cab of her rusty Ford pickup and let the hand of fate decide her destiny. She would not be facing a conundrum like this if she had not spent all week plotting her clever ruse for this evening. Instead, she would be sitting in front of the fireplace eating cabbage and cornmeal dumplings and not heading south on Flat Bottom Road along the

Louise Beal was done. She was worn out. She was over it. Louise tired and coming home from work. When she turned down her street and saw cop cars and ambulances everywhere, with blue and red lights flashing and sirens blaring, Louise got scared, worried for her children’s safety. She got increasingly more worried as she got closer to her lifeless, dull home, when she saw Ian’s commodore out the front she broke into a hysterical run. The police officers looked at her, their faces showing sympathy and concern. She only stopped running when she got to the front door, about to enter only to be held back by an officer. Louise thrashes around, screaming out for her children, to be released. Louise only screams more when she sees a body bag on a stretcher

Clemmy Sue Jarvis a petite woman of sixty-three, has lived in the rural southern town, of Wrongberight her entire life. If given a choice, she would rather kiss Johnny Jackson’s jackass than venture out onto the roadways. Since, four days of intermittent rainstorms had transformed them into a never-ending, slip and slide. However, she had no choice. Therefore, around three in the afternoon, on the third Saturday in June, she eases her rusty Ford pickup out of her driveway. Moments later, she turns south on Flat Bottom Road and begins to follow it along the edge of the Dismal Swamp towards the isolated home of her dearest friend Estelle Louise.

Livvy also finds a red folder from a novelist's boot camp she attended before she wrote her first book. Livvy opening the folder is surprised to find Mrs. Dixon standing right in the middle of the group photo. She took the folder and put it in the purse. Livvy ran to the kitchen when she heard the gravel driveway crunch. Livvy grabbed a knife for a better weapon and tried to escape by running to the kitchen exit but it was locked from the outside. Hiding behind the couch Mrs. Dixon came in yelling “I know you're in here.” Livvy used surprise scaring Mrs. Dixon and jumping from behind the couch and pinning her to the ground she tried stabbing the knife into her shoulder but she squirmed and the knife went into her neck. Officer Ritchie called for backup and Mrs. Dixon and Livvy were taken to the hospital in an ambulance.

Fire trucks immediately arrived on the scene. This was not much help because the town fire truck could not function correctly that night. The truck had stopped working that night due to the cold. A group of men had to push the truck to Maudie’s house to try to extinguish the flames.

Estelle Louise’s, faded red gingham housedress clings to her the same way Saran Wrap does to Venison chops and her long, thin premature white hair hangs in a mess of sopping tangles when she finally climbs into the truck. As soon as she slams the door shut, she quickly realizes the passenger window is missing. Immediately, she rummages under the seat and finds, a large black plastic trash bag, a roll of duct tape, and jerry-rigged a makeshift window.

It was late December 1963 at Montgomery manor. Thunder is booming in the distance. Philip Montgomery is lounging in his blue rocking chair by the fire. The clock strikes 12, a light cool breeze extinguishes the fire Philip Montgomery hears his door slam shut. He panics, yelling for help Fredrick dashes down and finds Philip unconscious with a large bump on the side of his head with a slight cut on his left wrist. “Oh gosh! Philip! Philip wake up. Oh gosh, what am I to do?” Frederick frantically searched for someone to help him. He found a maid. He explained what had happened while dragging her down the hall towards the room. “Did you call the police? What do you want me to do?” The maid stuttered. They heard the wailing of the sirens in the

Thanks to her I forgot where I was in my presentation. I hated talking in front of people and bein interrupted was not making it better. I desperately tried to find the last sentence I said, after a while I gave up so I had to start all over at the beginning of the slide.

As they are getting ready to leave, Carrie gets a phone call informing her that her husband office building has been burned and she needs to get there right away. Carrie had gotten had gotten half ownership in the building in her divorce settlement. The

The author is being ironic because the viewers are well aware of the events that took place between the moment that Mrs. Mallard received the horrific news her husband passing away to the moment that her husband showed up on the door, only to rediscover that nothing had happened to him. True, Louise experienced a great deal of grief when she first received the news. Not knowing what might happen to her and how she will overcome this void that was left by the passing of her husband, she was overwhelmed with sorrow and despair. However, this feeling of despair soon turned into joy when she discovered that the absence of her husband meant that she could do all the things that she had been longing to do, including the opportunity to visit all

He reached the next room, and this time, there was no antechamber with weapons preparing him for the fight. It led directly into the main chamber, which was a white room. It was probably the smallest room yet, but it was still a fairly large room. Bigger than any rooms in Evad’s house, anyways. The room had a faint shimmer, like smoke from a car exhaust pipe on a sunny day. Evad realized that the room was well-lit, even though there were no visible light sources. Suddenly, the air in front of him swirled and turned opaque, a shifting mass of white and gray. It coalesced into a large, fancy mirror. A voice echoed throughout the room.

A young woman, late twenties, is walking through a grocery store her name is Estela. Her head is hanging low and you can see sadness in her eyes. She is walking down an aisle and sees a woman with her daughter. The daughter is complaining and the mother seems to be annoyed. A tear runs down Estela’s face as she puts food into her cart. As Estela enters her home you can see a picture of a middle age woman sitting on the table next to her door. She walks to the kitchen and begins to cook. She pulls of a book from her cupboard that is labeled “recipes.” She begins to follow the recipe. She looks to the right of her and sees a mother and daughter. The daughter is standing on a chair reaching up the counter mixing the content of a bowl while the mother cleans up after her. Tears begin streaming down Estela’s face as she finishes cooking her meal. She sits down at the table by herself and is eating when the doorbell rings. She answers it to find some of her friends from college at the door. They are dressed up and are asking Estela to go out with them tonight. They are begging her to go out with them, but Estela declines and goes back to her meal.