The triumph of love remains the central theme in Erdrich’s novel spanning five decades and dealing with the impact of cultural assimilation on two Native American families, the Kashpaws and the Lamartines. Living on a reservation in North Dakota, the two families struggle with the isolation and conflicts that alienate them the mainstream culture as well as from members of their own culture. Hanging over the alienation of conflicting religions, customs, economic issues, and family lifestyles, is a blanket of alcoholism and depression. While the bonds of love as healing (i.e., love medicine) remain a central theme, Erdrich demonstrates the alienation and conflicts that many Native Americans endure from life on the reservation and their attempts to fit into mainstream white culture.
We see this kind of internal conflict and alienation in many parts of the novel In one chapter titles Saint Marie, we see that Marie is cocky at the thought of nuns having to accept a Native American saint but at the same time we see her undersell her own heritage in a manner which suggests she must convince herself of her own worth as a Native American in a white world “I was going up there to pray as good as they could. Because I don’t have that much Indian blood. And they never thought they’d have a girl from this reservation as a saint they’d have to kneel to” (Erdrich 43).
We see these kinds of intercultural conflicts throughout the novel. So, too, we see that alienation and conflict often occur among Native Americans themselves as they struggle to retain their heritage while modernizing. We see this clearly in the conflict between Henry and Lyman Lamartine. Lyman considers himself a strong man, one who survives by doing what he has to in order to adapt to his surroundings. He is somewhat condescending to those who cannot or refuse to modernize. One such person is his brother Henry. Because he re
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