Louise Erdrich The Round House

By nature, all children must turn into adults someday, and that transition is often not an easy one. Many people go through traumatic events in order to achieve adulthood, some events more life changing then others. In the novel, The Round House by Louise Erdrich, the story is told through the point of view of a native American 13 year old named Joe, who is witnessing his life fall apart after his mother is brutally attacked and raped; However, Joe refuses to stay a child during these events, and he becomes a modern-day warrior as his determination to find the attacker and find balance for his family is reflective of his native American culture. He finds new independence, receives support from his family and friends, and tests his limits as

With his mother suffering post-traumatic stress disorder, and the fear of her violent attacker, Joe is left to defend for himself much of this time. Joe’s first realization that things were forever changed is when he found the milk had soured in the refrigerator. Joe finds this very distressing and out of character for his mother, who had grown up without a refrigerator, so “she took the freshness of its contents seriously.” The reader can tell Joe is still expecting to be dependent on his parents as he goes and tell his mother the milk was sour.However, he soon realizes she is still incredibly hurt, “the bruises had come out and her eyes were darkly rimmed liked a raccoon’s. A sick green pulsed around her temples. Her jaw was indigo. Her eye brows had always been so expressive of irony and love, but now were held tight by anguish.” And so he, realizing he must take on more responsibility, offers to go get milk from the gas station for her. Throughout the story Joe starts to become more and more independent from his parents over the course of that summer. He learns to cook for himself; he gets a job at his Uncle’s gas station and goes on many adventures his parents know vaguely about. Joe in this sense is on the track to manhood in a way everyone achieves adulthood, by learning to do things on one’s own. However, Joe’s coming of age story is more complicated than just learning how to adapt and acquire adult skills like cooking and cleaning. Joe’s true coming of age story lies in the realization that his family is hurt and damaged by Geraldine’s attacker and that nobody can help them find that attacker because of confusing jurisdiction laws. So Bazil is often neglecting Joe, not consciously, as he worries over his wife, and so the 13 year old boy decides he must do something about it that no one else