LaRose

Sickness appears in a variety of forms and is interwoven into the history of the characters. Many of the LaRoses suffer from and ultimately die of tuberculosis complications, which is personified as a character within the story (see Quote 15). As most of the characters are of Ojibwe descent, the author also interrogates the relationship between native populations and their near extinction as a result of measles and smallpox. However, these diseases are rarely directly addressed or given much narrative space; rather, it is the persistence of the Ojibwe population in spite of this attempted extinction that is given precedence. The author constructs these modern characters as survivors, demonstrating their strength as a result of their blood, even the broken antagonist, Romeo (see Quote 14). It is implied that this novel is a survivor’s narrative, a testament to the will to overcome even mass slaughter at the hands of an invisible enemy.

The author also investigates the modern diseases confronting the Ojibwe population, namely addiction and diabetes. The author is careful to address alcoholism and drug dependency as diseases that spread, much like tuberculosis, while still indicating the horrible reality of disease. Alcoholism most keenly affects the first LaRose’s mother, Mink, who seems to be the embodiment of death and disease. “Mink’s voice was horrid—intimate with filth—as she described the things the girl could do if Mackinnon would only give over the milk” (13). Here, the author indicates both the psychological and physical torment associated with alcoholism, as Mink’s very character seems to have rotted from the inside out. The disease has affected even the way her voice sounds, as well as the terrible offers that come with her speech. She seems to be decaying with each word, becoming less and less of a person. However, the author does not suggest that Mink is terrible for offering her daughter to Mackinnon in exchange for alcohol, although the reader cannot help but feel a significant amount of disgust at this offer. Instead, the reader pities Mink as her addiction seems so clearly outside of her control. The author uses the motif of disease in order to refrain from moralizing against the addictions so common within these characters’ lives. 

Although the novel concerns redemption after the unintended murder of Dusty, it also examines the nature of revenge. Most of the characters desire to exact revenge in some way against those who have wronged them, creating tension within the community. For example, Nola wishes her husband exact revenge on Landreaux for the death of Dusty. “She wanted her husband to bludgeon Landreaux to death. She saw it clearly. Though she was a small, closed-up woman who had never done harm in her life, she wanted blood everlasting” (4-5). Although Nola herself is not a violent person, the trauma of her son’s death brings this desire for violent vengeance to the surface, indicating the environmental proximity to violence. The author creates a setting in which violence and the capacity to commit violence lurks just below the surface, constantly threatening the characters with its ubiquitous presence. This violence is inherently linked to the desire for revenge; however, the author refrains from moralizing revenge even though she does admit its harmful potential.

The clearest and most consistent desire for revenge comes from Romeo’s long-standing quest to ruin Landreaux’s life. Romeo sees the murder of Dusty as an opportunity to pay Landreaux back for crippling him as well as forgetting the time they spent together. “With just the right amount of oxy, Romeo looked at things as a movie drama where revenge was justice, saw himself outside of himself, even heard the music, furtive and swelling” (322). As a character, Romeo obsesses over his revenge, biding his time until his plan for vengeance comes to fruition. Romeo’s desire for revenge against Landreaux does not seem complicated by his decision to give Landreaux his son, Hollis, to raise as one of Landreaux’s own children. As indicated by the quotation, Romeo seems removed from the other characters within the novel, perhaps enabling his single-minded pursuit of vengeance. Rather, Romeo believes himself the protagonist out to seek justice against Landreaux, moralizing his actions. The author implies that revenge can become problematic both when it is divorced from human connectivity and when conflated with morality. The author indicates that the nature of revenge exists as something neither evil nor good, merely just present; however, with a lack of human conductivity this instinctual desire can become moralized, thereby creating problems and furthering the tension within a community. 

The characters believe that names carry energy that seems to exist beyond human control (see Quote 9). The Irons even refrain from using the familial name, LaRose, because of its historical weight (see Quote 2). The author associates divinity as well as omnipresence with the name LaRose (see Quote 8), as though the name exists outside of Anglo-Western concepts of chronology. Similarly, the name LaRose links the current LaRose with all the LaRoses who came before him, cementing the familial history through the matrilineal line (see Quote 20). The name LaRose also enables agency for the characters. When Mrs. Peace is an adult talking to her spirit-mother, she remembers, “I wrote our name everywhere […] in hidden places they would never see. I wrote my name for all of us […] once, I carved my name in wood so that it could never be erased” (134). The third LaRose writes her name everywhere around the boarding school so as to preserve the history of the name. The name LaRose no longer allows for annihilation; rather, it becomes a way in which the characters can react against the forced assimilation and cultural extinction of the boarding schools. LaRose takes ownership over her name while simultaneously taking ownership over the places that seek to destroy her name as well.

However, the name LaRose does not represent the only name that exudes power nor the only way that a name can connect to power. The author also indicates that a name must be used properly in order to indicate whether it belongs to the spiritual world or the earthly world. When Randall counsels Landreaux in the sweat lodge on how to fight demons, Randall cautions, “Yeah, say his name, but use the spirit world marker. Use iban” (52). Randall acknowledges that this terminology must be used in order to ground the spirits and prevent them from crossing over into the earthly realm. These designations indicate the boundaries between the worlds, implying that the improper use of a name can eliminate or confuse these boundaries and possibly result in unforeseen or chaotic events. 

The woods are both a part of the reservation and not, representing both the obfuscation and the delineation of boundaries. The woods are associated with what Anglo-Westerners might call magic, as the veil between the spirit world and the earthly world seems thinner there. When LaRose contemplates the nature of the woods, he reflects, “His parents talked about the manidoog, the spirits that lived in everything, especially the woods” (209). LaRose understands the spiritual nature of the woods and so returns there when he attempts to commune with Dusty’s spirit. The woods are also the location of Dusty’s death, suggesting forces at play greater than human actions. LaRose knows that the woods seem to be a place that is revered in Ojibwe tradition. The author acknowledges this respect when discussing the land’s history: “In the old time, people had protected the land by pulling up survey stakes. A surveying man had even gone missing. Although the lake at the center, deep and silent, had been dragged and searched, his body was never found. Many tribal descendants had inherited bits of land, but no one person had enough to put up a house. So the land stayed wild and fractioned […] the woods were still considered uncanny” (14). The woods cannot be tamed by the white settlers; it exists as something that is perhaps past the realm of human knowledge. The woods also prevent themselves from being contained or settled in any manner. However, the author also argues that the current generation has lost contact with the spirituality associated with the woods and even with nature itself: “After the horror movies these kids watched they were all scared of the woods—Indians. Millennial Indians” (111). The woods therefore symbolize an association and understanding of traditional Ojibwe culture that many Americanized youth have lost contact with. However, LaRose does not suffer from this same fear, signaling that perhaps the method back to healing the community lies in the reassertion of Ojibwe cultural traditions.