An Ecofeminist Reading of Fleur and Lulu in Louise Erdrich’s Novel Tracks

Abstract

Tracks by Louise Erdrich is a novel dealing with the struggles of Native Americans
at the beginning of the twentieth century, but within that broader frame—it also
speaks out about the connection between the colonial oppression of nature and the
subjugation of women. Although some ecocritical and ecofeminist readings of the
novel, especially relating to Fleur Pillager, are available, not much has been written
on the character of Lulu Nanapush as presented in Tracks. Therefore, this article
analyses Fleur Pillager and Lulu Nanapush to discover how the tenets of ecofeminism are implemented in the novel. The research relies on the theories of different
ecofeminist and postcolonial authors. After establishing the colonial background of
conjoined oppression of women and nature, the article focuses on how Fleur embodies and protects nature, while Lulu begins to lose her connection to nature due
to her colonial background. Thus, strategic essentialism of the kind could be understood as having been implemented with the aim of underlining the exploitation of
Native American women by settler colonizers, as well as the eradication of nature.