Devoid Of Hope In Louise Erdrich's 'The Beet Queen'

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Devoid of Hope Set in the Depression-era Midwest, Louise Erdrich’s The Beet Queen chronicles the travels of siblings Karl and Mary Adare. Told from an omniscient third-person point of view, this passage from The Beet Queen recounts Karl and Mary Adare’s first experience in eastern North Dakota after traveling in a boxcar, sequestered in their own world away from the harsh reality of the Depression. Erdrich’s choice of point of view allows her to highlight the contrast between not only the actions, but also the thoughts of Karl and Mary. This juxtaposition is mirrored in Erdrich’s choice of setting: the dilapidated bleakness of Argus, with which Mary seems to identify, contrasts with the soft and dream-like quality of the blossoming branch …show more content…

Written from the literary point of view of naturalism, or realism combined with the “oppressive twin forces of heredity and environment” (O’Keefe. 29 August 2016), The Beet Queen considers both these forces in the form of environment, or the desolation and lack of hope of the Depression, and heredity, in Karl and Mary’s lifestyle of loneliness and alienation, as evidenced by their time in the boxcar, a symbol of detachment from the outside world. In agreement with the naturalist argument that the forces of heredity and environment can become so oppressive that humans become devoid of free will, or the ability to act freely at least part of the time, the significant conflict of the work is the siblings’ lack of free will. Karl, who due to his heredity of loneliness, is immensely attracted to the tree, becomes unable to endure the environment of Argus, or the desolation and lack of hope of the Depression, without the blossoming branch, so much so that he is forced to return “to the boxcar and the train” (Erdrich ln. 74) at the conclusion of the excerpt. Mary, however, stays behind in Argus because her own heredity causes her to seek out her family. Despite the siblings’ attachment to each other, their heredity and the environment of the Depression force them to go

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