Why do you think Louise Erdrich titled her novel Tracks? What is the significance of tracks in the story? How should we understand "tracks"...

Louse Erdrich’s novel Tracks, published in 1988, is the third in a tetralogy of novels that explores the interrelated lives of families who live in and around an Indian reservation in North Dakota. The narrative of Tracks is the earliest chronologically, delving into the back story of several characters from the other books.

Erdrich has commented on the importance of titles in her work. In the book Conversations with Louise Erdrich and Michael Dorris,...

Louse Erdrich’s novel Tracks, published in 1988, is the third in a tetralogy of novels that explores the interrelated lives of families who live in and around an Indian reservation in North Dakota. The narrative of Tracks is the earliest chronologically, delving into the back story of several characters from the other books.

Erdrich has commented on the importance of titles in her work. In the book Conversations with Louise Erdrich and Michael Dorris, Erdrich says a book title is like a “magnet” drawing experiences, memories, and conversations to it until those pieces coalesce as a book.

The book’s title may be drawn partly from themes surrounding the past. Like tracks or footprints left behind, the narratives of Nanapush and Pauline often look back at those “tracks” of the past. Tracks may also refer to the historical context of the novel. For example, Lulu’s mother wants to prevent her from marrying a Morrissey, a reference to the Morrissey/ Pillager land rights following the 1887 Dawes Act. A consequence of this central event of Native American history was to destroy the Indian land base and, as a result, hurt Indian culture, too. These historical “tracks” are inseparable from the characters’ current struggles.

The title may also refer to the narrative structure of the story. The novel alternates between the first person point of view of Nanapush and Pauline, who often tell different versions of the same stories. Thus, the reader follows parallel, sometimes intersecting, narrative “tracks.”

Nanapush follows in the tracks of Nanabush the trickster, a central figure in Chippewa storytelling. As an elder and a trickster himself, he challenges the gods and cheats death by playing a trick on them. Pauline, however, follows a different track. She is a tragic figure torn between her Indian heritage and her desire to reject it. As Pauline descends into madness, she eventually chooses a track leading away from her tribal community.