Love Medicine

Erdrich explores many different forms of romantic, platonic, and filial love in Love Medicine, and challenges typical notions of how love is experienced, shared, and inspired. Though the kinds of love they experience can be vastly different, each of Erdrich’s characters who achieves a strong sense of autonomy also has a strong foundation of at least one kind of love.

Erdrich deeply explores self-love, in which characters look inward to accept and find joy in their own selves. This is seen successfully in Lulu Lamartine’s adoration of her body and mind, and even in Howard’s belief in his own self despite his father’s neglect. By contrast, both Lipsha and Lyman struggle with self-knowledge, impeding each man’s ability to achieve the self-esteem necessary to accomplishing their goals. Lipsha achieves this self-knowledge by the end of the novel, but Lyman is left wondering how he can prove his worth to himself and his community.

Erdrich also explores platonic love for others, such as Lyman’s love for his brother Henry Junior or even Albertine’s tentative compassion for Henry Junior when they meet in Fargo. Throughout the stories, receiving love from others is as important as giving love to others. Unreciprocated love is dangerous, as evidenced by June’s wanderings in the world, constantly on the search for someone to return the love she gives others. Marie and Lulu dole out unconditional love to their children and community, which changes the trajectory of many characters who simply need to know that someone out there cares about them, such as Lipsha or Lyman. By contrast, Marie’s romantic relationship with Nector is an example of the dangerous side effects of hoping for love that doesn’t get returned. Nector loves Marie in his own way, but he is passionately in love with Lulu. The desperate desire Marie has to win Nector’s love is heightened by the injustice that she gives love to him, his family, and all their children. However, the love medicine that kills Nector suggests that love cannot be forced or demanded. Similarly, Lulu’s husband Henry Lamartine attempts to tolerate Lulu’s extramarital affairs, knowing that Lulu is capable of feeling romantic love and sexual attraction to multiple people. But Henry desires the security of mutual monogamy, and experiences emotional agony over his inability to be Lulu’s exclusive sexual partner. Thus, it is possible for love to save you or to kill you, and Erdrich suggests both the importance and difficulty of reaching a mutual agreement on how love will be expressed and shared between individuals.

In Little No Horse, love is all the more important because of the threat posed by the white American world. When Indigenous Americans were killed in a genocide sponsored by the US government, a major tactic was to pull families apart. This continued for centuries in different forms, such as forcing children into American families and schools to teach them assimilation. That Erdrich’s Ojibwe families stay together no matter what, that they celebrate their complex dynamic and large sizes, is in direct defiance of the white American plan to degrade the Indigenous American family.