Essay Database

There is a story to it the way there is a story to all, never visible while it is happening. Only after, when an old man sits dreaming and talking in his chair, the design springs clear. There was so much we never saw and never knew. --Nanapush in Tracks "We started dying before the snow, and like the snow, we continued to fall." So begins Nanapush, as he recalls the winter of 1912, when consumption, …

…Forget that it ever existed, and it returns. I never made the mistake of thinking that I owned my own strength, and that was my secret. And so I never was alone in my failures." What do you think he means? How does the novel go about illustrating the wisdom of this view? In what ways is Nanapush's observation related to a contrast in the ways power is deployed between the Chippewa and white cultures?