got to agree with him." Immediately after, King is threatening Lynette: "Bitch! Bitch! I'll kill you!" (Erdich 34). Alcohol serves throughout the book as a useful symbol for depicting dissolute American society: "Drunk [Henry] had started driving the old Northern Pacific tracks and either fallen asleep or passed out, his car straddling the rails" (Erdich 107).
In both novels, alcohol is destructive physically and representative of the perceived depravity of American culture. Power uses alcohol as a symbol effectively. Rather than rely on a stereotypical image of a drunken Indian, she uses alcohol as a catalyst for tragedy and as a vehicle by which she gives a voice to the biases of White America. Alcohol does not appear in her novel as frequently as it does in Erdich's novel, but the subtlety with which she uses it is impressive. Erdich uses alcohol as a symbol in a less delicate fashion, preferring to dramatize its effect rather than use it to address issues of historical oppression or spiritual estrangement. Erdich focuses more on the literal effects; Power focuses on both the literal and symbolic effects.
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