The Round House By Louise Erdrich Analysis

The Round House In the novel The Round House by Louise Erdrich, she tells the story of a women who is attacked and the search for justice for her and her family. The story is told from the perspective of the son Joe. It gives us view into how the attack of his mother affects not only her but the entire family. They struggle with their relationships among each other while the father and Joe are in search of finding some type of justice for the mother and themselves. However, justice becomes difficult to find when jurisdiction issues come into the mix. In this novel, there is a question of what justice is and how justice will be served. In Joe’s eyes he thinks that he is the only one who is able to serve this justice for both his mother and his family. Joe has a moment of thinking in the story when he has to come to the decision of what he should do. In Joe’s train of thought he thinks to himself “during this ride of peace, so like my earliest memories of going places with my parents, it came to me what I must do” (Erdrich, 249). This moment for Joe is the light bulb moment when he finally decides what he must do in order for there to be justice and for Linden Lark to be held accountable for his actions. After this decision is made by Joe, he seems to struggle with
The question of who would deal out justice based on jurisdiction becomes hard to identify. This unknown of whether the attack happened on tribal land or federal land is what causes Linden Lark to be freed. This jurisdiction problem is something that Linden Lark knew when he planned his attack. He knew that there would be confusion over where he attack them and knew he would get away free. Linden says, “I won’t get caught, he said. I’ve been boning up on law” (Endrich, 161). He knew he wasn’t going to be caught because he had done his research and knew that where he attack was in a place that covered tribal, state, and federal