Love Medicine

by

Louise Erdrich

Lulu Nanapush / Lulu Lamartine Character Analysis

The traditional Ojibwe wife of Moses Pillager; the Christian wife of Henry Lamartine and Beverly Lamartine; mother to Gerry, Henry, Jr., and Lyman; and Nector Kashpaw’s lover. After being rescued from the residential school by her Uncle Nanapush, Lulu meets and falls in love with Nector, but he unexpectedly leaves her after falling in love with Marie. Heartbroken, Lulu moves in with Moses, a traditional Ojibwe man and her second cousin. She soon gives birth to Gerry, but when Moses refuses to leave the isolated island he lives on, Lulu leaves him and moves back to the reservation. Lulu is an openly promiscuous woman, and she makes no apologies for her sexual choices. She marries Henry Lamartine, a kind man who drinks too much, and even though he is not the biological father of any of Lulu’s eight sons, he accepts them as his own. Henry, however, is a terrible alcoholic, and he parks his car on the railroad tracks and commits suicide. Lulu has a fleeting affair with Henry’s brother, Beverly, which results in the birth of Henry, Jr., but she soon begins to see Nector again, and the two have a weekly affair for over five years. During this time, Nector fathers Lulu’s son, Lyman, and after the tribal council evicts Lulu from her house and land (Henry had never officially purchased it, and Lulu is technically squatting), Nector inadvertently burns down Lulu’s house, leading to the end of their relationship for several years. Lulu is a strong and independent woman who loves fiercely and lives her life on her own terms. She fights for her family and her home, and when she is branded as sexually promiscuous, she holds her head up high and refuses to be ashamed. In her old age, Lulu becomes a respected member of her tribe, valued for her knowledge of “old-time” Ojibwe traditions. Through the character of Lulu, Erdrich argues the power of love to both enrich and complicate one’s life. Lulu lives to love, but love also destroys her, which underscores Erdrich’s primary assertion that love, while undoubtedly wonderful, can also be complicated and painful.

Lulu Nanapush / Lulu Lamartine Quotes in Love Medicine

The Love Medicine quotes below are all either spoken by Lulu Nanapush / Lulu Lamartine or refer to Lulu Nanapush / Lulu Lamartine. 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 Island Quotes

Following my mother, I ran away from the government school. I ran away so often that my dress was always the hot-orange shame dress and my furious scrubbing thinned sidewalks the matrons forced me to wash. Punished and alone, I made and tore down and remade all the dormitory beds. I lived by bells, orders, flat voices, rough English. I missed the old language in my mother’s mouth.

Related Characters: Lulu Nanapush / Lulu Lamartine (speaker), Fleur Pillager
Page Number: 68
Explanation and Analysis:

“Although I lost my spirit to Father Damien six years ago, gambling at cards. I’d still like to walk away on the old road. So when my time comes, you and your mother should drag me off, wrap me up in quilts. Sing my songs and then bury me high in a tree. Lulu, where I can see my enemies approach in their government cars.”

Related Characters: Nanapush (speaker), Lulu Nanapush / Lulu Lamartine, Marie Lazarre / Marie Kashpaw
Page Number: 71
Explanation and Analysis:
Lulu’s Boys Quotes

Lulu’s boys had grown into a kind of pack. They always hung together. When a shot went true, their gangling legs, encased alike in faded denim, shifted as if a ripple went through them collectively. They moved in dance steps too intricate for the noninitiated eye to imitate or understand. Clearly they were of one soul. Handsome, rangy, wildly various, they were bound in total loyalty, not by oath but by the simple, unquestioning belongingness of part of one organism.

Related Characters: Lulu Nanapush / Lulu Lamartine
Page Number: 114
Explanation and Analysis:
Love Medicine Quotes

It was Grandma Kashpaw who thought of it in the end. She knows things. Although she will not admit she has a scrap of Indian blood in her, there’s no doubt in my mind she’s got some Chippewa. How else would you explain the way she’ll be sitting there, in front of her TV story, rocking in her armchair and suddenly she turns on me, her brown eyes hard as lake-bed flint.

“Lipsha Morrissey,” she’ll say, “you went out last night and got drunk.”

How did she know that? I’ll hardly remember it myself. Then she’ll say she just had a feeling or ache in the scar of her hand or a creak in her shoulder. She is constantly being told things by little aggravations in her joints or by her household appliances.

Related Characters: Lipsha Morrissey (speaker), Lulu Nanapush / Lulu Lamartine, Marie Lazarre / Marie Kashpaw, Sister Leopolda
Page Number: 236
Explanation and Analysis:

As I walked back from the Red Owl with the rock-hard, heavy turkeys, I argued to myself about malpractice. I thought of faith. I thought to myself that faith could be called belief against the odds and whether or not there’s any proof How does that sound? I thought how we might have to yell to be heard by Higher Power, but that’s not saying it’s not there. And that is faith for you. It’s belief even when the goods don’t deliver. Higher Power makes promises we all know they can’t back up, but anybody ever go and slap an old malpractice suit on God? Or the U.S. government? No they don’t. Faith might be stupid, but it gets us through. So what I’m heading at is this. I finally convinced myself that the real actual power to the love medicine was not the goose heart itself but the faith in the cure.

Related Characters: Lipsha Morrissey (speaker), Lulu Nanapush / Lulu Lamartine, Marie Lazarre / Marie Kashpaw, Nector Kashpaw
Related Symbols: Geese
Page Number: 241-2
Explanation and Analysis:

“Love medicine ain’t what brings him back to you. Grandma. No, it’s something else. He loved you over time and distance, but he went off so quick he never got the chance to tell you how he loves you, how he doesn’t blame you, how he understands. It’s true feeling, not no magic. No supermarket heart could have brung him back.”

Related Characters: Lipsha Morrissey (speaker), Lulu Nanapush / Lulu Lamartine, Marie Lazarre / Marie Kashpaw, Nector Kashpaw
Related Symbols: Geese
Page Number: 253
Explanation and Analysis:
The Good Tears Part 1 Quotes

And so when they tell you that I was heartless, a shameless man-chaser, don’t ever forget this: I loved what I saw. And yes, it is true that I’ve done all the things they say. That’s not what gets them. What aggravates them is I’ve never shed one solitary tear. I’m not sorry. That’s unnatural. As we all know, a woman is supposed to cry.

Related Characters: Lulu Nanapush / Lulu Lamartine (speaker)
Page Number: 273
Explanation and Analysis:

I believed this way even before those yellow-bearded government surveyors in their tie boots came to measure the land around Henry’s house. Henry Lamartine had never filed on or bought the land outright, but he lived there. He never took much stock in measurement, either. He knew like I did. If we’re going to measure land, let’s measure right. Every foot and inch you’re standing on, even if it’s on the top of the highest skyscraper, belongs to the Indians. That’s the real truth of the matter.

Related Characters: Lulu Nanapush / Lulu Lamartine (speaker), Henry Lamartine
Page Number: 278
Explanation and Analysis:
Get the entire Love Medicine LitChart as a printable PDF.
Love Medicine PDF

Lulu Nanapush / Lulu Lamartine Quotes in Love Medicine

The Love Medicine quotes below are all either spoken by Lulu Nanapush / Lulu Lamartine or refer to Lulu Nanapush / Lulu Lamartine. 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 Island Quotes

Following my mother, I ran away from the government school. I ran away so often that my dress was always the hot-orange shame dress and my furious scrubbing thinned sidewalks the matrons forced me to wash. Punished and alone, I made and tore down and remade all the dormitory beds. I lived by bells, orders, flat voices, rough English. I missed the old language in my mother’s mouth.

Related Characters: Lulu Nanapush / Lulu Lamartine (speaker), Fleur Pillager
Page Number: 68
Explanation and Analysis:

“Although I lost my spirit to Father Damien six years ago, gambling at cards. I’d still like to walk away on the old road. So when my time comes, you and your mother should drag me off, wrap me up in quilts. Sing my songs and then bury me high in a tree. Lulu, where I can see my enemies approach in their government cars.”

Related Characters: Nanapush (speaker), Lulu Nanapush / Lulu Lamartine, Marie Lazarre / Marie Kashpaw
Page Number: 71
Explanation and Analysis:
Lulu’s Boys Quotes

Lulu’s boys had grown into a kind of pack. They always hung together. When a shot went true, their gangling legs, encased alike in faded denim, shifted as if a ripple went through them collectively. They moved in dance steps too intricate for the noninitiated eye to imitate or understand. Clearly they were of one soul. Handsome, rangy, wildly various, they were bound in total loyalty, not by oath but by the simple, unquestioning belongingness of part of one organism.

Related Characters: Lulu Nanapush / Lulu Lamartine
Page Number: 114
Explanation and Analysis:
Love Medicine Quotes

It was Grandma Kashpaw who thought of it in the end. She knows things. Although she will not admit she has a scrap of Indian blood in her, there’s no doubt in my mind she’s got some Chippewa. How else would you explain the way she’ll be sitting there, in front of her TV story, rocking in her armchair and suddenly she turns on me, her brown eyes hard as lake-bed flint.

“Lipsha Morrissey,” she’ll say, “you went out last night and got drunk.”

How did she know that? I’ll hardly remember it myself. Then she’ll say she just had a feeling or ache in the scar of her hand or a creak in her shoulder. She is constantly being told things by little aggravations in her joints or by her household appliances.

Related Characters: Lipsha Morrissey (speaker), Lulu Nanapush / Lulu Lamartine, Marie Lazarre / Marie Kashpaw, Sister Leopolda
Page Number: 236
Explanation and Analysis:

As I walked back from the Red Owl with the rock-hard, heavy turkeys, I argued to myself about malpractice. I thought of faith. I thought to myself that faith could be called belief against the odds and whether or not there’s any proof How does that sound? I thought how we might have to yell to be heard by Higher Power, but that’s not saying it’s not there. And that is faith for you. It’s belief even when the goods don’t deliver. Higher Power makes promises we all know they can’t back up, but anybody ever go and slap an old malpractice suit on God? Or the U.S. government? No they don’t. Faith might be stupid, but it gets us through. So what I’m heading at is this. I finally convinced myself that the real actual power to the love medicine was not the goose heart itself but the faith in the cure.

Related Characters: Lipsha Morrissey (speaker), Lulu Nanapush / Lulu Lamartine, Marie Lazarre / Marie Kashpaw, Nector Kashpaw
Related Symbols: Geese
Page Number: 241-2
Explanation and Analysis:

“Love medicine ain’t what brings him back to you. Grandma. No, it’s something else. He loved you over time and distance, but he went off so quick he never got the chance to tell you how he loves you, how he doesn’t blame you, how he understands. It’s true feeling, not no magic. No supermarket heart could have brung him back.”

Related Characters: Lipsha Morrissey (speaker), Lulu Nanapush / Lulu Lamartine, Marie Lazarre / Marie Kashpaw, Nector Kashpaw
Related Symbols: Geese
Page Number: 253
Explanation and Analysis:
The Good Tears Part 1 Quotes

And so when they tell you that I was heartless, a shameless man-chaser, don’t ever forget this: I loved what I saw. And yes, it is true that I’ve done all the things they say. That’s not what gets them. What aggravates them is I’ve never shed one solitary tear. I’m not sorry. That’s unnatural. As we all know, a woman is supposed to cry.

Related Characters: Lulu Nanapush / Lulu Lamartine (speaker)
Page Number: 273
Explanation and Analysis:

I believed this way even before those yellow-bearded government surveyors in their tie boots came to measure the land around Henry’s house. Henry Lamartine had never filed on or bought the land outright, but he lived there. He never took much stock in measurement, either. He knew like I did. If we’re going to measure land, let’s measure right. Every foot and inch you’re standing on, even if it’s on the top of the highest skyscraper, belongs to the Indians. That’s the real truth of the matter.

Related Characters: Lulu Nanapush / Lulu Lamartine (speaker), Henry Lamartine
Page Number: 278
Explanation and Analysis: