Analysis Of Louise Erdrich's Short Story 'The Big Cat'

Native American culture has been nearly destroyed and almost completely forgotten because of the lack of knowledge and empathy American has for the race, but authors like Louise Erdrich are the voice of the silent, forgotten culture. The short story The Big Cat, written by Louise Erdrich, tells a story of a Elida, a woman whose behavior resembles one of a cat’s behavior. In the beginning of the story she and her husband divorced, but throughout the story she preyed on her husband like a cat would do a mouse, to get her husband to return to her. Oddly enough, even though the couple reunited, the author used to unique characterization and vivid imagery to make the ending have a sad, ire tone. Thought this short story has nothing to do with Native

American culture, there are Native American themes hiding throughout the story. With vivid imagery and very specific language, the author allows her Native American struggles to be show cased through a seemingly broken family.
The author employs plentiful sensory details in order to establish an atmosphere within the novel that aids the reader in having a sense of empathy towards the narrator’s thoughts and emotions. The story is told from the Elinda’s ex-husband’s point of view. Though he has a very passive personality, his covert thoughts gave the reader a vivid insight into his world. “I would regret leaving this lavish, comfortable house bought by Laurene Schott’s money. I would regret leaving Laurene, too, the silent comfort of her presence every night.” The words and details, “regret”, “wrong” and” I’m so sorry” suggest the narrator has a hesitant attitude towards the divorce. The narrator’s overt actions seems to resemble someone who in confident in their decision, but on the inside he is filled with uncertainty. This is done intentionally the author to give the reader a V.I.P pass into the mind of the narrator; it also encourages empathy towards the narrator by exposing his genuine, unspoken emotions. The author gives his reader insight into how it would feel to going through a divorce by being very specific in words and detail. Though almost all of Native American adults are married, marriage is never seen as permanent. Native American’s married and divorced freely, based on their liking. Considering that this story contains three marriages and two divorces, this Native tradition is incorporated into the story.
The author used extended metaphors to create an understanding, but amusing tone to the story. “Beside me, Elinda’s finishing touch the high-pitch burr of a polisher perfecting a metal surface”. The effect of the metaphor comparing Elinda’s snoring to a metalworking shop is to give the reader an idea of how loud and dramatic Elinda’s snoring is. The author continues the metalworking shop metaphor to describe Elida’s family snoring problems; “my mother-in-law … Rough-cut saw” “the sister … sparked and soldered invisible objects”. The purpose of the metaphor is to give the story comic relief to lighten the reader’s heart after exposing the fact that Elida has been divorced. As the plot thickens, the metaphor transform into something more sinister. “The orderly, mechanical regularity of metalworking shop had been abandoned. Now much more like a pack of killer wolves snarling over killer” The author changed the comparison from a metalworking shop to a pack of killer wolves; this was a very drastic change. The function of the new metaphor is to give reader insight into the evolution of the main character’s thoughts. With words and details his thoughts changed from a one of passive happiness to uncomfortably apprehensiveness. The thought of Elida’s snoring resembling a “killer wolves snarling” made the narrator feel as if he himself was prey. The reader has no reason to suspect anything is wrong with the narrator, but with the author’s play on words and use of extended metaphor the reader gets an ire feeling that everything not be what it seems.
The author allows her own personal values of family to shine through her work by putting emphasis on the main character’s daughter emotions. “We told her. She began to sob. “All this time? How selfish! Mean! I could have had you both together. Instead, I’ve been trying to get use to you apart.” The reason for the shift in tone in the paragraph is to add seriousness and emotional content to the story. It can be inferred from the description how passionate the daughter’s emotions were when finding out about her parent’s secret affair, that a quality family relationship is valued by the author. “As the daughter of a Chippewa Indian mother and a German-American father, Erdrich explores Native-American themes in her works, with major characters representing both sides of her heritage.“ (http://www.poetryfoundation.org/) By embracing both side of her heritage in her writing, the author hints the importance of family and knowing your culture. The author uses pathos reasoning for the purpose of making the narrator’s daughter’s emotions personal, not only to herself, but to readers as well, assuming the reader also values family. In Native American culture family plays a huge role in their everyday; family is not only blood relatives to them but anyone who is in their tribe or village is considered family. Native Americans had a strong sense of family hood and valued the honesty within their relationships. Family is important to almost everyone, and the author used this common value to relate to a large audience and ultimately made her short story much more empathetic by doing so.
In addition, the author uses colloquial diction and symbolism to allow the reader to sense the narrator’s attitude and mood in particular moments throughout the story.

“How dark was my narrative! Why had Elinda killed me of, instead of letting me rescue the dogs at the end? This downward trajectory gave me a moral chill.” After watching the video collage his wife put together for him, the narrator should have expressed a sense of happiness, but his diction inferred he was apprehensive. The sequence of questions is used by the author to transform the atmosphere of the passage from an ideal happy ending to one of grief and stress. The author manipulates diction so well in the story, it leave the reader wondering if they should be sad or content with the ending. The author uses symbolism in the line “I destroyed the movies… no one would never have the patience to assemble my life glimpse by glimpse again.” This line is symbolic for him throwing away a relationship that he should have never returned to. The narrator is experiencing Spontaneous recovery, which is a phenomenon of learning and memory where you miss something that you originally got ridge of, but once you get it back, you realize why you got ridge of it to begin with. Without the readers use of symbolism and diction the story would have been shaped and perceived

differently.
The author, Louise Erdrich, writes stories that have Native American themes, so that her culture and traditions would not be forgotten. The author has won many awards for her short stories, but is also very popular for her concise, heartfelt poetry. The critically acclaimed poetry Jacklight, tells a stories of male-female and of white-Indian relations. Similar to the Story Big Cats, Jacklight never gives antagonist a particular race. She leaves that large detail out and open for interpretation for the reader so that she doesn’t blame a particular race, but blame the content and characteristics of the oppressor’s character. An essayist for Contemporary Novelists observed that “Erdrich’s accomplishment is that she is weaving a body of work that goes beyond portraying contemporary Native American life as descendants of a politically dominated people to explore the great universal questions—questions of identity, pattern versus randomness, and the meaning of life itself.” All in all, Louise Erdrich’s writing gives voice to an entire culture, who has experienced a tremendous amount of pain and suffer.