Perspective

Dr. Lori Alvord, the author and main character of The Scalpel and the Silver Bear, has a reflective and divided perspective on her life. It is reflective in that Alvord is keenly aware of her emphases in the book. She makes her themes explicit and draws clear lessons from her story. There is no guesswork when it comes to Alvord's view. The perspective is also fundamentally divided because of Alvord's experience as a Western-trained surgeon and a member of the Navajo nation. As mentioned at several points in the guide, Alvord self-consciously develops a dual identity between her two lives.

Alvord's initial identity is as a member of the Navajo nation, though with a white mother and a father partly integrated into Western culture, she was always set apart in terms of the expectations her family had for her. When Alvord made it to Dartmouth she stuck to...