The Round House Analysis

One of the themes used in the book is of racism towards the Natives. An example used in the book is of Edward Sheriff Curtis who was a photographer of 1900s. Curtis was interested in taking pictures of Native people, but not just any Native person. “Curtis was looking for the literary Indian, the dying Indian, the imaginative construct” (King, 2003; pp. 34). He used many accessories to dress up people up “who did not look as the Indian was supposed to look” (King, 2003; pp.34). He judged people based on his own assumptions without any knowledge of the group and their practices. Curtis reduced the identity of the Native Americans to a single iconic quintessential image of what Native meant to white society. The idea related to the image of this group of people during the 1900s consisted of racism in terms of the “real looking Indian”. This is not

James McBride is the son of Ruth McBride and is only one of twelve mixed race children. McBride delves into his mother’s closed off past. Something she never allowed herself to share with any of her children. He grew up in the projects. Growing up McBride did not understand his mother; he was embarrassed, and baffled by her. It was not until he was a

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.

Victor and Thomas had never been off the reservation before. They experienced what it’s really like to be a Native American in the real world. On the bus ride there, two white men took their seats and made rude comments about them being Native Americans. They received a lot of stares and uncomfortable looks from people as well. The bus ride to Phoenix was hard for Victor because he had to deal with Thomas talking the whole time. Victor especially didn’t like it when Thomas brought up his father in conversation.

In Sherman Alexie’s novel “The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian” the narrator portrays both internal and external conflicts throughout his journey to success. Arnold Junior Spirit is a fourteen-year-old boy who believes that in order to pursue his dream he will have to choose between staying in his Spokane Indian reservation or moving out to an all-white school in the neighboring farm town. But things aren’t as easy as they seem when Junior tries moving schools because he know has to be part of two communities. Many conflicts form within the Spokane Indian reservation and the Spokane Indian reservation as well comes into conflict with the white community.

They do not allow Native Americans to do what their ancestors did, instead they are kept inside to be made into white men and women. To finally fell the cold breeze Charlie escapes the school and ends up feeling “the cold [pierce] his chest” (177).He was so desperate to get away from the restricting school that he risks his life to get away. Big Tom is working a terrible job barely getting by, he is selling baskets to tourists. His wife has to work for white folks cleaning out their houses and not even earning money. After Big Toms baby died he went to break to news to his wife, Mary, where he watched a car pull up and “[she] and another Indian girl….

Racism is a driving force in David’s town specifically towards Native Americans. Uncle Frank is accused of raping young Indian girls who he is supposed treat medically, Wesley the town sheriff interviews Ollie Young

Throughout the whole movie, life on the reservation is shown through various stories and flashbacks. The portrayal of life on the reservation is not romanticized, nor is it criticized; life on the reservation is shown truthfully. There were problems then and there still are problems now with alcoholism, broken families, and a sense of abandonment. Alcoholism in communities, like the one portrayed in the film, causes a large ripple through everyone, their family and their tribe. It broke Victor and Thomas’ families, as Victor’s dad ran away due to actions he committed under intoxication and Thomas’ parents died in an accident that involved alcohol. Victor’s dad vanishing brought upon him a sense of abandonment that affected his overall outlook on life at a

The theme of the novel is that your culture and background does defy you. In other words, being in a gang or group doesn’t mean you're not unique. For example, Ponyboy is in a gang/hood group “The Greasers” and does things like mug and snatch like the other members of the group, but this doesn't mean he doesn't have a different personality than the others. Another theme in the novel is the power of brotherhood. This is a sub-theme because it not confronted to the readers until the end of the novel. On page 176, Sodapop Curtis said, “ We ought to be able to stick together against everything if we don't have each other we don't have anything.” This quote struck out to me because throughout the

Lives for Native Americans on reservations have never quite been easy. There are many struggles that most outsiders are completely oblivious about. In her book The Roundhouse, Louise Erdrich brings those problems to light. She gives her readers a feel of what it is like to be Native American by illustrating the struggles through the life of Joe, a 13-year-old Native American boy living on a North Dakota reservation. This book explores an avenue of advocacy against social injustices. The most observable plight Joe suffers is figuring out how to deal with the injustice acted against his mother, which has caused strife within his entire family and within

Native Americans were seen as less during the mid 1900’s in Montana. Frank and Wesley’s father believes that Frank should not have been arrested because it was Indian women he was raping. When Frank is explaining his side of the story his dad interrupts and says, “Something about assaulting a goddamn Indian. Since when do you get arrested in this part of the country for taking a poke at a man, red or white, that’s what I--,” (Watson, 110). Indians lived on reservation in Montana during this time so Frank’s fathers views on Indians was influenced due to his setting and Indians being seen as less in Montana. Paul’s girlfriend in “A River Runs Through It” was also an Indian. Indians were continuously seen as less during the mid 1900’s. When Paul and Norman came to a bar with their girlfriends they were asked what they wanted to drink except Paul’s girlfriend the Indian. The waiters setting influenced her views on Indians making her not want to serve them at the bar. Her views were also dependent on the fact that the server was coming from Montana where Indians were also kept on reservations and her view stayed as the Indians being less based on the

Within the justice system lays complex connotations that are either ignored or spun in a way that interprets different meanings. What is even more complex is how to guarantee justice in a society, more specifically the Chippewa society, where the legal system contains cracks that make it hard to bring justice for Native Americans. In The Round House, Erdrich explores this concept of bureaucratic intricacy that divides the United States jurisdiction and the Native American tribal lands. After Joe’s mother, Geraldine, is raped, he learns how the law not only doesn’t protect her, but also how there is no justice being served. Therefore, Joe decides to take law into his own hands and give his mother the justice she deserves. He does so by turning to the old Chippewa traditional system called the wiindigoo justice system. Joe struggles throughout the book with the law and how the justice system works. There is also an internal struggle that he doesn’t realize yet, with the image of Native American women on the reservation and how men, throughout the story, treat them. While jurisdiction plays a big part in how Native Americans receive their justice, it also boils down to how the crimes being committed against Native American women decide the fate of many characters.

Storytelling is a large component of Native American’s culture. Storytelling has the ability to connect people, events, and things to each other which transcends racial and temporal boundaries. Van Camp transcends the binary’s boundaries through storytelling, bringing Native traditions and events into the modern world. For example, Larry is a Dogrib, yet he is not living on a reservation and more or less seems to know little about his Indigenous identity, “Due to the novel's multiethnic small-town setting and his parents' residential schooling, Larry seldom receives cultural knowledge that might explicate... a traditional Dogrib social structure” (McKegney). However, through storytelling, specifically oral storytelling, Van Camp sets up a connection between Larry and his tribal knowledge. Larry is told his tribe’s creation story which serves as a vessel to deliver tribal knowledge into Larry’s modern world. The creation story can also be seen to transcend boundaries between the different Indigenous tribes of Jed, Larry, and Johnny. Larry is also seen to share stories with the readers as well as the characters of Juliet, and Johnny. Juliet is white and learns of an Indigenous story through Larry, “I closed my eyes and decided to let the story lead. I was just the voice, and I knew the story would tell itself.” (Van Camp 113). The story connected Juliet with

After the loss and a difficult time in her life, she managed to continue to write novels. She then took a short break from writing and after coming back to write some more, she won the National Book Award for her novel, The Round House (2012). Erdrich also owns an independent bookstore where she lives, in Minneapolis, Minnesota which specializes in Native American literature and Ojibwe-language publications. She is proud of her Ojibwe heritage that she is committed to preserve the Ojibwe language and culture that she eventually formed the Birchbark House Fund to support indigenous language revitalization. Also, along with her sisters, they established Wiigwaas Press to publish literary material in Ojibwe and bilingual Ojibwe/English. Her Indian heritage is surely in her heart.

Joe is respected by his son Chris throught the story but when chris finds out that his dad knew about the broken cylinder heads and he still shipped them out he lost the respect for him. Joe found out about Larry's death and when he knew the real reason why he ended his life and Joe understood what Larry meant by the letter he couldn't live with himself after knew found out what Joe did. The way the author describes the characters in this novel is he used archetypes most stories use these to mold story ideas most books follow the same archetypes they model their stories with theses archetypes and this author is one of