Saint Marie Summary
In "Saint Marie," Erdrich explores such themes as racism and prejudice. For instance, she examines the various ways Sister Leopolda discriminates against Native Americans, while pushing her audience to understand why it is important to question such behavior. Faced with an ambitious Marie who seeks sainthood and to "inherit [her] keys," Sister Leopolda senses implicit animosity from forces outside her order, both literal and metaphorical. Leopolda's behavior indicates how racism can stem from fear of displacement.
Yet despite their different ages and backgrounds, Marie and Leopolda understand one another. Each recognizes the soul of the other, and each knows the extent to which the other will go to manipulate the power granted through institutionalized religion.
The potential to transcend cultural differences is within reach. That Marie and Leopolda are not able to do so suggests that religious and cultural barriers can be very difficult to break.
Perhaps the...
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Study Pack
The Saint Marie Study Pack contains:
Saint Marie Short Guide
Louise Erdrich Biographies (6)
2,021 words, approx. 7 pages
Once named one of People magazine's most beautiful people, Louise Erdrich (born 1954) is a Native American writer with a wide popular appeal. She is no literary lightweight, however, having drawn comp...
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5,792 words, approx. 20 pages
Like William Faulkner and his Yoknapatawpha County, American writer Louise Erdrich has created her own mythical landscape in and around Argus, a fictional Red River Valley reservation town on the Minn...
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4,392 words, approx. 15 pages
The families Louise Erdrich first introduced in a short story, "The World's Greatest Fishermen" (1982) -- the Kashpaws, the Lamartines, the Pillagers, and the Morrisseys -- have also appeared in four ...
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8,776 words, approx. 30 pages
Louise Erdrich is one of the most important contemporary Native American writers. She writes poetry and some of the most sophisticated fiction and nonfiction being produced in the United States; her n...
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6,008 words, approx. 21 pages
The writings of Louise Erdrich not only reflect her multilayered, complex background but also confound a variety of literary genre and cultural categories. Although she is known primarily as a success...
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6,457 words, approx. 22 pages
Biography EssayThe writings of Louise Erdrich not only reflect her multilayered, complex background but also confound a variety of literary genre and cultural categories. Although she is known primari...
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Louise Erdrich
Louise Erdrich
Louise Erdrich