Almost every character in this Love Medicine grapples with the two cultures in their lives. In fact in David Treuer’s analysis of the book, he describes it as “a novel about conversions both sexual and cultural”. One culture being that of their ancestors, the native American culture, and the other being the popular American culture of the modern day. Some characters may lean more heavily towards one or the other. Those like Nector turn heavily towards the popular culture while characters similar to Albertine turn to the comfort of nature as their predecessors had. The way Erdrich presents this conflict in Love Medicine would make it appears the native culture of the characters leads to less conflict and an overall better life. Those that turn away from their native ways and towards that of the populous end up in a less than ideal state. This, though one interpretation of the story, may not reflect the real intent of Erdrich when writing such a prevalent…show more content… Some characters tend towards the popular culture more than the native and end up in a quite awful situation. Another struggle we see is at the beginning when June is about to walk into the snow storm after spending a lot of time in the bar. She probably knows that walking into that snow storm was dangerous but does it regardless. This could be a sign of her choosing nature over the toxic popular culture even if it kills her. She cannot take the hallow life she lives in the new American culture and would rather die. Gordie also has fallen into the clutches alcoholism which is a white man’s invention and the white man is seen as the ones who created the popular culture that views itself as superior to that of the native Americans. Gordie, when confronted with the death of his beloved June, remembers an old Indian superstition which says that saying the name of a deceased person could summon their spirit but only remembers this after calling out to June. He is haunted by
