Another topic in Emerson’s transcendental essays was his idea about self-reliance. He believed that if you went out into nature, you would find your true purpose. You would find your connection, your purpose, and think for yourself. There would be no wrong from your mouth, and your actions would hold truth. This is similar in Love Medicine. In the novel, there are two sons of Rushes Bear: Eli and Nector. The American government in this time period made it to where Native American children were sent to boarding schools. There, their culture was erased. They were forced into Christianity and white man’s customs. Rushes Bear gives her son Nector to the governments men, while hiding Eli. Rushes Bear’s justification for this was that she “gained
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They are frail supports for what we feel. There are times I get so hemmed in by my arms and legs I look forward to getting past them…I’ll be out of there as a piece of endless body of the world feeling pleasures so much larger than skin and bone and blood. (Erdrich 283)
She is aware of the constraints of being human. It takes all of her possessions burning for her to think that way. This could be taken as a longing for death in a suicidal way, but her connection the cosmos, the attention to the Over-Soul is apart. She realizes the constraints that society put on her. She lets her mind dream and wander.
Later, while in the nursing home, there is a beautifully crafted symbolism involving her eyes. She is going blind, unable to see those around her. Erdrich beautifully describes this loss, having Lulu explain, “I was suffering worse from the eyesight every day, almost as if the longer I sat quiet…reflecting the human heart, the more inward tuned my vision, until I was almost blind to the outside world” (289). She showed a reflective nature, looking to herself for her answers. This loss of sight is also the loss of her heart. There is a trapped feeling, where she is lost in herself. Thoreau elaborates on this loss, although not necessarily the loss of the heart, but of losing one’s priorities; the true heart of our being. Thoreau explains, “Not till we have lost the world, do we begin to find ourselves” (118). Lulu has lost herself. She reflects on the loss of youth, of Nector, on who she is. She is closing in on herself, cutting herself off from
They are frail supports for what we feel. There are times I get so hemmed in by my arms and legs I look forward to getting past them…I’ll be out of there as a piece of endless body of the world feeling pleasures so much larger than skin and bone and blood. (Erdrich 283)
She is aware of the constraints of being human. It takes all of her possessions burning for her to think that way. This could be taken as a longing for death in a suicidal way, but her connection the cosmos, the attention to the Over-Soul is apart. She realizes the constraints that society put on her. She lets her mind dream and wander.
Later, while in the nursing home, there is a beautifully crafted symbolism involving her eyes. She is going blind, unable to see those around her. Erdrich beautifully describes this loss, having Lulu explain, “I was suffering worse from the eyesight every day, almost as if the longer I sat quiet…reflecting the human heart, the more inward tuned my vision, until I was almost blind to the outside world” (289). She showed a reflective nature, looking to herself for her answers. This loss of sight is also the loss of her heart. There is a trapped feeling, where she is lost in herself. Thoreau elaborates on this loss, although not necessarily the loss of the heart, but of losing one’s priorities; the true heart of our being. Thoreau explains, “Not till we have lost the world, do we begin to find ourselves” (118). Lulu has lost herself. She reflects on the loss of youth, of Nector, on who she is. She is closing in on herself, cutting herself off from