Louise Erdrich’s Writing Style

Louise Erdrich’s writing style is one that is colloquial, having a lyrical tone that captures the sound and dialect of how the characters speak. Her style is also in the tradition of Native American oral literature. In A. Lavonne Brown Ruoff’s article “Introduction to American Indian Literatures”, Simon Ortiz discusses the importance of oral story telling stating:
"The oral tradition is not just speaking and listening, because what it means to me and other people who have grown up in that tradition is that the whole process,.. Of that society in terms of its history, its culture, its language, its values, and subsequently, it’s literature. So it’s not merely a simple matter of speaking and listening but living that process" (184).
In this way, there is an importance attached to those who’ve grown up in the Native American culture, hearing and telling stories from the past and feeling the need to write them down as a way to preserve them. This can be seen in “Love Medicine” by the structure and format of the story. Each individual story can stand on its own and reads like the narrator is verbally telling the reader the story. The stories themselves interconnect and as the novel progresses, certain questions are answered, characters are made more complete, and details are clearer as different characters give insight into the other characters and their individual views create the story itself. This aspect of the novel also reflects an important idea in the Native American oral tradition; that of the words themselves creating the world around them. To explain this point, Ruoff points to Gary Witherspoon’s work “Language and Art of the Navajo” which presents certain Navajo beliefs explaining that “the Navajo world was brought into being by the gods, who entered the sweathouse and thought the world into existence” (185).
There are a number of ways in which Louise Erdrich writing style is in contrast to the traditional Western ideals of language. The first way this is shown is by Erdrich incorporating traditional Native American language and mixing it with the English prose. This can be seen in the novel with a number of the characters speaking in their native tongue. This occurs in the first story in couple of instances; the first is when King asks Gordie for a cigarette and Gordie replies: “…you don’t say can I have a cigarette. You say ciga swa?” To which Eli replies “Them Michifs ask like that….you got to ask a real old time Indian like me for the right words” (32). The second instance is when Eli comments on being old stating “I’m an old man…Akiwenzii” (34).
Another way that the Erdrich writes against the Western ideals of story telling is by not having an omnipotent narrator who knows everything and who speaks in the same tone and with the same attitude. In “Love Medicine” the story is told from multiple narrators which provide multiple points of view. In this way, the reader can hear different sides of a story or hear a different prospective that provides a more complete view of a story or a character. For example the reader is provided with different views of Lulu, one provided by Nector in an earlier time and the other provided by Lipsha at a later time period. This balance is also provided with the story being told from different perspectives; from both male or female and young or old points of view. The novel also dose not have a linear format as it is not in chronological order and the time periods jump from story to story.
By using multiple narrators, a non-chronological format and by incorporating Native American language and traditions of oral story telling, Erdrich manages to use a European prose like format in a new and different way to reflect her cultures traditions.

Work Citied

Ruoff, Lavonne Brown A. Introduction to American Indian Literatures. New York, MLA, 1990
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Erdrich, Louise. Love Medicine. New York, Harper Perennial, 2009.