Write helpful rsponeses to the students in first person by stating how you agree with them and give your opinion and add more info on it

Write helpful rsponeses to the students in first person by stating how you agree with them and give your opinion and add more info on it.

1)

Christian Barry

Professor Luna

English 124

10/22/17

Not What You Expected

Love and Medicine by Louise Erdrich grips readers with its changing of perspectives and intricate characters that string together their stories to reveal a larger one. To learn more about plot and the intent of this perspective changing strategy by the author, analyzing some of the characters reveals how and why the Erdrich would use the character. Lulu Nanapush, who is known for her “friendly” encounters with various men, is a prime example of the author uses her misdirection and underlying messages hidden in her characters. From her house on the reservation to caring for her many children, everything Lulu does is well thought out and articulated to make sure she has everything she needs to provide for her family and live a life she sees fit.

When first looking into what kind of character Lulu is, we see her as a selfless women willing to do anything to please men and someone who lacks self-respect. “most of her life Lulu had been known as a flirt. And that was putting it mildly. Tongues less kind had more indicting things to say” (Erdrich 105). This was the belief of much of the town sadly, and Lulu’s word had little meaning to anyone in the town which is why she tended to keep to herself. Lulu never let any of the negativity about her character affect her day to day life even going as far as telling the town, “and so when they tell you that I was heartless, a shameless man-chaser, don’t ever forget this: I loved what I saw. And yes, it is true that I’ve done all the things they say. That’s not what gets them. What aggravates them is I’ve never shed one solitary tear. I’m not sorry. That’s unnatural. As we all know, a woman is supposed to cry” (Erdrich 273). This quote shows what kind of person and character Lulu is demonstrating nothing but the love and safety of her children is all she needs, and that she will never be ashamed of doing what she loved with her life. I believe this is also the main reason for Erdrich to use a character like Lulu. From the town’s perspective, she is a “whore” and looked down upon by her neighbors, however as we are shown Lulu is very conscious of her actions as well as how the town and her neighbors view her. Lulu however is a very smart and meticulous planner and her actions within in the book are all planned even her children as she claims to ruin the reputation of some men who fathered her children in secret.

Lulu Nanapash is complex character in the book, Love and Medicine by Louise Erdrich. She represents both values past and present throughout the book and in my opinion is used by Erdrich to show that you can live your life however you want and that family is the only thing that really matters. This notion of doing what you want is associated with negativity but with a further analysis of Lulu’s character we see that she lives an admiral life aside from sleeping with various men. That was the point of her character, to demonstrate to not judge a book by its cover. Do you believe Lulu’s lifestyle deserved the reputation she received from the society she lived in?

Works Cited

Erdrich, Louise. Love Medicine. Holt McDougal, HarperCollins, 1984.

2)

Jared Clanton

English 124

Professor Luna

25 October 2017

For the pages that we have read up to this point, one of the characters

that has interested me a lot is Gordie. In the Chapter titled “Crown of Thorns

(1981)”, we take a look at Gordie’s life after June’s death. There have been a

couple characters that we have already seen how they dealt with June’s

death, but for some reason Gordie really stood out to me. Gordie took to

drinking, which is not a surprise because that is a common way for people

“deal” with the loss of a person in their life. One of the crucial moments that

happened in this chapter is that Gordie believes that he saw June outside of

the window and that she was knocking on the glass. “Her face. June’s face

was there. Wild and pale with a bloody mouth. She raised her hand, thin

bones, and scratched sadly on the glass.” (Erdrich 214) This among other

events that occurred are leading us to believe that Gordie is going to

continue to drink away his life and that he won’t ever make a recovery from

this traumatic moment in his life. I am interested to see what happens to

Gordie as we continue reading.

Question: Will this downfall of Gordie’s life be long term or short term?

Interested to see what happens.