24 pages • 48 minutes read
Fleur
A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Symbols & Motifs
Water
“Fleur” starts and ends on Lake Turcot. At the beginning of the story, Fleur drowns twice, and her fellow Chippewa believe she derives some power from surviving those drownings, as death by water is “the death a Chippewa cannot survive” (177). At the end of the story, Fleur is living a quiet life, “down on Lake Turcot with her boat” (189). Of particular import to the Chippewa in the story is Fleur’s relationship with Misshepeshu, “the water man, the monster”; he is described as a “thing of dry foam, a thing of death by drowning” (177). Some fear Fleur because Misshepeshu seems determined to claim her, and some believe she has married him by the end of the story, and that he may be the father of Fleur’s child with “green eyes and skin the color of an old penny”—language similar to an early description of Misshepeshu in the story (189). Water often serves as a metaphor for cleansing and purity, but in “Fleur,” waters suggest threats and danger to outsiders. For Fleur herself, the water is a place of rebirth—she drowns and gets reborn with powers. When she ends up close to the lake again, her life is “quiet” again. This contrasts with the way she was “haywire” after the second drowning, as though the water itself is both a source of terror and redemption.
In the parts of the story in Argus, water plays a different role. The only mention of water itself is the description of Fleur bathing “in the slaughtering tub,” an eerie and evocative instance of her seeking to clean herself in a place of literal death (183). The men too end up the victims of water in a sense—they are frozen to death in a locker full of ice, suggesting Fleur’s association with water contributes to her vengeance.
Animal Imagery
Animals appear throughout “Fleur” to represent the base levels of the characters as well as the power of nature (or Fleur herself).
Both of the principal human characters (aside from Pauline) are described in animalistic ways. Lily, for example, is described as being “fat, with a snake’s cold pale eyes and precious skin” (180). Fleur is described as having “braids […] thick like the tails of animals,” “strong and curved and very white” teeth like a bear’s, and only four toes like an animal’s paw (180). Both Lily and Fleur shapeshift into animals at points in the story, and in both cases they embody the animals they are said to look like. Lily is snakelike and piglike, and Fleur is strong like a bear. Fleur’s connection to animals both also emphasizes her sexuality and mysticism; it is her connection to animals and nature that makes others fear her.
“Fleur” also references actual animals, both living and dead. Lily has a dog, Fatso, which he asks during the final card game, “You reckon that girl’s bluffing?” ( 184). Later, another animal temporarily delays his assault on Fleur, as he wrestles with a pig and starts to even more resemble it. Where living animals are portrayed as companions or obstacles, the dead animals of the butcher shop foreshadow the eventual fate of Lily and the other men. Fleur’s assailants meet their fate in a meat locker where they freeze to death, surrounded by the dead animals they previously butchered. Their fate is further brought to them by a storm with “a fat snout that nosed along the earth” until it found Kozka’s (187). The storm freed the living pig Lily had wrestled, and the animal storm facilitates the men becoming meat.
Subjectivity in Storytelling
“Fleur” is written in a first-person perspective, which Erdrich uses to emphasize to the reader that they are reading a story in a metafictional sense. Pauline narrates the story by first invoking the storytelling tradition of her people. Specifically, she cites her grandmother as an authority: “It went to show, my grandma said. […] By saving Fleur Pillager, those two men had lost themselves” (176). Pauline similarly describes Misshepeshu by telling the readers of what “our mothers warn us” about (177). All the information Pauline has about Fleur’s life before Argus comes from secondhand stories or facts attributed to the whole tribe. At the end of “Fleur,” Pauline explains that “the old men talk” still but that their stories are wrong, as “they only know they don’t know anything” (189), implying the inherent subjectivity of all stories while simultaneously positioning Pauline as the best teller of Fleur’s tale. Pauline equates the legitimacy of her version of Fleur’s story with her presence in that story. Even within the action at Argus, Pauline contrasts the “blinded” and “stupid” men with her ability to perceive the truth about Fleur (180). Likewise, her “staring eyes” give Pauline the power to know “everything, what the men said when no one was around, and what they [do] to Fleur” (179). Pauline’s own subjectivity is revealed by her inability explain her own decisions to not intervene in Fleur’s assault and, later, to lock the men in the freezer.
Unlock all 24 pages of this Study GuidePlus, gain access to 8,800+ more expert-written Study Guides.
Including features:
Related Titles
By Louise Erdrich
