Themes in "Tracks" and "Jazz"

In order to appreciate the way gender and history are treated by Morrison and Erdrich in their respective novels, it is useful to note that the fictional design of each novel appears to be ethnographic in character. Tracks, for example, is placed in the context of a dying Native American community at Matchimanito Lake near fictional Argus, North Dakota, between 1912 and 1924, and tells the story of how some members of the community facilitate that decline and dispersal of the population. The dying is both metaphorical and literal, for the novel opens with an account of an epidemic of tuberculosis raging through the community that prefigures the epidemic of industrial destruction of the wilderness. The initial narrator of the story, the old medicine man Nanapush, has the perspective of the ages. From the vantage point of leader of the tribe, he explains (to an adopted child, it turns out) that he survived the epidemic and nu

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wing day. The three men seek shelter in the store's freezer, and they are locked in (by Pauline, as it turns out). Three days later, when the freezer is opened, two of the men have died, and the third is so severely frostbitten that his extremities literally fall off. This incident sets up a dynamic of what turns out to be Fleur's personal power. The Pillagers are known by the community to have an aura of magic about them, which means that embodying it in Fleur makes perfect sense. Fleur's pregnancy is not showing when she returns to Matchimanito, and she takes up residence at her family's cabin on the lake. She also takes Eli Kapshaw as a lover, and when the baby Lulu is born, it is not clear who the father is, though Nanapush admits to paternity. That birth achieves an aura that lifts it out of history, for a bear invades the cabin while Fleur is in labor; it is frightened away, shot by Pauline, but the idea grows that the bear was itself an apparition. It is at this juncture that the unfolding history of Fleur becomes confused in Matchimanito, the subject of gossip that "comes up different every time, and has no ending, no beginning. They get the middle wrong too" (Erdrich 45). For the women of Tracks, gender affects destiny
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Some common words found in the essay are:
Nanapush Pauline, Joe Violet, North Dakota, Native American, Native Americans, Kapshaws Fleur, Joe Cannon, Eli Kapshaw, Toni Morrison's, Maryland Delaware, native american, joe violet, unfolding history, lumber company, gender history, toni morrison's, violet joe, city's unfolding history, pillager family, community matchimanito, african american, boston gk hall,
Approximate Word count = 2897
Approximate Pages = 12 (250 words per page)

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