Saint Marie Analysis

Saint Marie
By Louise Erdrich

" You have two choices. One, you can marry a no good Indian, bear his brats,  die like a dog. Or you can you can give yourself to God."- Sister Leopola pg. 48


I chose this quote because it serves as a telling indicator of a major driving force of the plot. This force is  Maire's inner and outer struggle with the consequences of  her identity. She is part white and part Native American in a time period in the American history when the latter of those identities was associated with immorality, being ostracized , and having a lifestyle  which was closely associated with the workings of the devil. The reader sees the undercurrents of racism and prejudice at work in that society  when Marie   describes the town she area she lives in as one in where " the Dark one had put in the thick bush, liquor, wild dogs, and indians".  However if the devil had a hand in establishing those so-deemed  unsavory parts the area, then God must have had a hand in creating the  church  which she describes as " Gleaming white. So white  the sun glanced off in dazzling display to set forms whirling behind your eyelids.The face of God you could hardly look at".  The church  at the top of the hill is seen as a pinnacle of virtue,  whose judgment even the  white townspeople fear and are aware of  when they put  up a storm blocker in front of the bar to block nun's view of drunks. Its as if having realized due to her biracial ethnicity she'd be forever viewed as lesser than, Marie decides that she she must find a method to not only raise her status to that of the white residents in town, but even beyond that to  the ever virtuous status of a saint. For a saint is one who even the seemingly most moral and virtuous, the nuns, must literally bow down to.  A quote that best display  this mindset, is when Marie  says things such as "I was going to up there to pray as much as they could. Because I don't have that  much Indian blood. And they never thought they'd have a girl from this reservation as a saint they'd have to kneel to". The person who Marie most deeply desires to prove her virtue and worth to is the sadistic and harshly racist nun called  Leopolda.  According to  Marie in the beginning of the story she is a nun whose outward devotion to Christianity is clearly defined through her appearance  and  whose condemnation of the devil is seen through her actions. What also drew Marie to her was Leoplada's insistence that the devil wanted her most of all presumably due to her so-called sullied lineage.  Marie describes herself as "the girl who thought the black hem of her garmet could help me rise". However the more  Marie uncovers   Sister Leoploda's evil and sadistic nature, so contradictory to  her role as a servant of the Lord, the more Marie comes to a new realization. This realization is that   " the real way to overcome Leopolda was this: I'd get to heaven first. And then when I saw her coming, I'd shut the gate. She'd be out. That is why besides the bowing and scraping I'd be dealt, I wanted to sit on the altar as a saint". Surprisingly however after Marie receives the status of a saint ,although it is extremely satisfying, she feels  pity for Leopolda. In fact instead of staying at the covent to bask in the glory of her sainthood and  triumph over Leopolda, Marie chooses to leave. She states that " blank dust was whirling through the light shaft. My skin was dust. Dust my lips. Dust the dirty spoons on the ends of my feet". Earlier in the passage Marie has a vision in which as punishment for her sins Sister Leopolda is eating glass which erodes her insides and transforms her into dust. The irony of situation at the end is Marie claims she herself is dust and is surrounded by dust after she becomes a saint under false pretenses. This figurative similarity between their two states can be explained by the fact that at the finish of the story they are both wolves in sheep clothing who deserve punishment for their sins. Rather than  arriving to sainthood through prayer and good deeds, Marie does so through attempted murder, deceit, and trampling on the spirit of Sister Leopolda. This is  quite similar to sister Leoploda , who has always guised her twisted ways under a religious cloak of devotion and virtue.  In the end Marie's actions  have brought physical and mental harm to her  in an effort to prove  to others she is a worthy human being. However it seems even being worshiped as a sacred being is not worth the loss of one's own principles and sense of self.