Love Medicine

by

Louise Erdrich

June Morrissey / June Kashpaw Character Analysis

Eli’s adoptive daughter, Gordie’s wife, and King and Lipsha’s mother. June’s own mother dies when June is just a young girl, and June is taken in by Marie, her mother’s sister. Marie does not want June at first, but she quickly falls in love with her and is heartbroken when June decides to live with Nector’s brother, Eli, instead. Eli welcomes June with open arms and loves her like his own, but like Marie, Eli is upset when June decides to marry Gordie, Marie’s son and June’s brother for all intents and purposes. Gordie and June have a toxic marriage, and Gordie frequently abuses her, causing June to repeatedly leave him. During one of Gordie and June’s periods of separation, June meets Gerry Nanapush and quickly becomes pregnant with Lipsha, who she hands over to Marie not long after he is born. June loves Lipsha, but she doesn’t feel as if she can take care of him, and she wants him to have a better life than she can give him. June spends most of her adult life leaving Gordie and going back to him, until she finds herself in a bar in Williston, North Dakota, with a stranger named Andy. Andy and June spend the day drinking, and then he drives her out to a deserted country road. They begin to have sex, but Andy passes out drunk, and June walks out into a snowstorm, where she later dies of exposure. Through the character of June, Erdrich highlights the disproportionate amount of violence women in the Native American community are forced to endure. June is brutally abused by her husband, and while she is not physically abused by Andy, he sexually exploits her and this ill treatment leads directly to her death. Despite this violence, however, June remains strong until the end. She defends herself to the best of her ability and won’t back down without a fight. In this way, June represents both the incredible strength of women and their vulnerability to the oppression and violence of abusive men.

June Morrissey / June Kashpaw Quotes in Love Medicine

The Love Medicine quotes below are all either spoken by June Morrissey / June Kashpaw or refer to June Morrissey / June Kashpaw. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
Tribal Connection and Family Ties Theme Icon
).
The World’s Greatest Fisherman Part 2 Quotes

Far from home, living in a white woman’s basement, that letter made me feel buried, too. I opened the envelope and read the words. I was sitting at my linoleum table with my textbook spread out to the section on “Patient Abuse.” There were two ways you could think of that title. One was obvious to a nursing student, and the other was obvious to a Kashpaw. Between my mother and myself the abuse was slow and tedious, requiring long periods of dormancy, living in the blood like hepatitis. When it broke out it was almost a relief.

Related Characters: Albertine Johnson (speaker), Marie Lazarre / Marie Kashpaw, June Morrissey / June Kashpaw, Lipsha Morrissey, Gordie Kashpaw, King Kashpaw, Zelda Kashpaw, Lynette Kashpaw
Page Number: 7
Explanation and Analysis:
Crown of Thorns Quotes

Her look was black and endless and melting pure. She looked through him. She saw into the troubled thrashing woods of him, a rattling thicket of bones. She saw how he’d woven his own crown of thorns. She saw how although he was not worthy he’d jammed this relief on his brow. Her eyes stared into some hidden place but blocked him out. Flat black. He did not understand what he was going to do. He bent, out of her gaze, and groped beneath the front seat for the tire iron, a flat-edged crowbar thick as a child’s wrist.

Related Characters: June Morrissey / June Kashpaw, Gordie Kashpaw
Page Number: 217
Explanation and Analysis:
Crossing the Water Part 4 Quotes

I still had Grandma’s hankie in my pocket. The sun flared. I’d heard that this river was the last of an ancient ocean, miles deep, that once had covered the Dakotas and solved all our problems. It was easy to still imagine us beneath them vast unreasonable waves, but the truth is we live on dry land. I got inside. The morning was clear. A good road led on. So there was nothing to do but cross the water and bring her home.

Related Characters: Lipsha Morrissey (speaker), Marie Lazarre / Marie Kashpaw, June Morrissey / June Kashpaw
Related Symbols: Cars
Page Number: 333
Explanation and Analysis:
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June Morrissey / June Kashpaw Quotes in Love Medicine

The Love Medicine quotes below are all either spoken by June Morrissey / June Kashpaw or refer to June Morrissey / June Kashpaw. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
Tribal Connection and Family Ties Theme Icon
).
The World’s Greatest Fisherman Part 2 Quotes

Far from home, living in a white woman’s basement, that letter made me feel buried, too. I opened the envelope and read the words. I was sitting at my linoleum table with my textbook spread out to the section on “Patient Abuse.” There were two ways you could think of that title. One was obvious to a nursing student, and the other was obvious to a Kashpaw. Between my mother and myself the abuse was slow and tedious, requiring long periods of dormancy, living in the blood like hepatitis. When it broke out it was almost a relief.

Related Characters: Albertine Johnson (speaker), Marie Lazarre / Marie Kashpaw, June Morrissey / June Kashpaw, Lipsha Morrissey, Gordie Kashpaw, King Kashpaw, Zelda Kashpaw, Lynette Kashpaw
Page Number: 7
Explanation and Analysis:
Crown of Thorns Quotes

Her look was black and endless and melting pure. She looked through him. She saw into the troubled thrashing woods of him, a rattling thicket of bones. She saw how he’d woven his own crown of thorns. She saw how although he was not worthy he’d jammed this relief on his brow. Her eyes stared into some hidden place but blocked him out. Flat black. He did not understand what he was going to do. He bent, out of her gaze, and groped beneath the front seat for the tire iron, a flat-edged crowbar thick as a child’s wrist.

Related Characters: June Morrissey / June Kashpaw, Gordie Kashpaw
Page Number: 217
Explanation and Analysis:
Crossing the Water Part 4 Quotes

I still had Grandma’s hankie in my pocket. The sun flared. I’d heard that this river was the last of an ancient ocean, miles deep, that once had covered the Dakotas and solved all our problems. It was easy to still imagine us beneath them vast unreasonable waves, but the truth is we live on dry land. I got inside. The morning was clear. A good road led on. So there was nothing to do but cross the water and bring her home.

Related Characters: Lipsha Morrissey (speaker), Marie Lazarre / Marie Kashpaw, June Morrissey / June Kashpaw
Related Symbols: Cars
Page Number: 333
Explanation and Analysis: