Louise Erdrich’s “The master butchers singing club”, or the construction of American ethnicity

R ev isfll de Esmdios Norteam erica11o s, 11 .º 11 (2 006) , pp . 13 - 24 LOUISE ERDRICH'S THE MASTER BUTCHERS SJNGING CLUB, OR THE CONSTRUCTION OF AMERICAN ETHNICITY SILVIA M ARTÍ NEZ FALQUINA University of Zaragoz a After the success of National Book Award finalist The Last Report on th e Miracles at Little No Horse (2001 ), Louise Erdrich, of Chippewa1 a nd German American descent, leads us back to the immigrant side of her hcritage in h er eighth novel. Published in 2003, The Ma ster Butchers Singing Club takes place in the years between the two World Wars, then beyond to 1954, and it deals with the migrant experience and the meeting of the Old World with the New. Although all of Erdrich's wo rk s are political in a more or Ie ss direct way, The Master Butcher shows a notably solid historical texture, in cluding not only sorne Nati ve Am erican referenc es like th e Ghost Dan ce or the ma ssacre of Wounded Knee, but a lso , and more significantl y, the wars in Europe and their implications for the Ame ri cans. The novel is a good example of the articulation of American ethni ci ty in terms broader than the Native American identity that predominates in Erdrich 's other works, w hi ch problema ti zes the Native American category a nd any st rict labels of ethnic definition in general. In fact, even though most of the critica! references to Er drich's texts have concentrated on the ar ticulation of Na ti ve elements, and on those novels where the Na ti ve compone n! is more outstanding, Erdrich has repeatedly expressed her claim to be co nsidered not just a Native writer bu t an American writer capable of artic ul aling the co mpl ex ity ' Out of thc three tenns that desig na tc this Native American tribe located on the two sides of the American-Canadian border, Chippewa and Ojibwe are originally Western, wh er eas Anishinabc is th e way thc people belong in g to this gro up traditiona ll y rcferred to them se lves. Although the three ca n be found in Erdrich 's references. 1 us e the onc that most commonly appcars in her writing. 14 Silv ia Martínez Fa/quina and richness of the American experience. As she confirms with The Master Butc hers Singing Club, Erdrich's vision of ethnic and cultural relations at a time when the interactive forces of nationalism and globalization urgently need redefinition h ave also made her a contemporary writer of worldly resonances. In Beyond Ethnicity, Werner Sollors notes the ambiguity i nh erent in the concept of ethnicit y, which is used, on the one hand, to refer to the distincti ve elements of a particular race or nation, acting as a defining category parallel to age, sex, religion or class, and according to which ali individuals with no exception belong to an ethnic group (24-25). In clear contrast with this usage, ethnicity also keeps its original meaning related to paganism, it refers to power relations and is interpreted «as other, as nonstandard, or, in America, as not fully American» (25), therefore, as a quality of ali groups except for the dominan t. Following Sollors, I argue that it is preferable to adopt the first definition of eth ni cit y, according to which ali cultural groups, dominant or not, are eth ni c, which involves the inclusion of Westerners toge th er with indians and other peoples like African-Americans or Chicanos (36-39). This is the only way that the articulation of white identity can be critically examined in the same terms in which it is done with the indian, as both the result and cause of a process of construction, so that the interdependence of the t wo categories is outlined and the relationship between the people defined through them can be critically revised.2 The conception of American ethnicity has as its roots, in Sollors' words, the ambiguity and tension between the forces of consent and descent, or «the conflict between contractual and hereditary, se lf -made and ancestral» (5-6). At the core of the American national character is «a denia l of legitimacy and privilege bascd cxclusively on descent» and a preference of the «Classic American idea of newcomers' rebirth into a forward-looking culture of consent» (4). Hence, Americans usually define themselves in terms of consent, overcoming hereditary relations and links to Europe, whereas the indians are interpreted as symbolizing descent, incapable of assimilating and forgetting their nature. America is therefore a new republic opposed to old European aristocratic legitimacy and to the indians' inherited rights to th e land, which brings about ambiguous definitions in relation to 2 The rcprcscntation of indian in italk s echoes Vizenor's intention to ou tl ine «linguistic usage and et hnocentric semantic blunders» (x1v). which 1 cxtcnd to the term white in order to stress an understanding of ethnicity that involves ali grou ps including thc Western. A note of ancntion un the use of gcncralisations necds to be includcd here. The binary opposition that separates the Western from thc Native world obviously risks erasing obvious differcn~es an d silencing pervading dialogu es betwccn the great diversity of na tions. cultures and languages th at make up both groups. Howevcr. thcy do respond to an existing pem:ption of rcalily, constmcting images and organising m ean in gs that peoplc resort to for self and othcr-identification. In this work. they are therefore used as a co mpound of qu estionable presuppositions that facilitate the study of bot h cultural groups and their intcractions. As for the rclationship betwecn 11·hirelindia11 and Western/Native, and evcn though the implications -po litical correctness asideof using eithcr pairare essentially the same, for they are both constructed on a bor<ler of diffcrence. 1 intend to emphasize the discursive construction in the italicised whirelindian and the subsequent response to such a construction in Western/Native, allhough 1 also argue that thc relation bctwcen the two dichotomies is not onc of altemation but of revisionist dialogue. Louise Erdrích 's The Master Butchers Singing Club. or the Constructíon ... 15 each of them: a cco rding to Manifest Destiny ideology, the new empire is defined as co mpatible to Europe and opposed to the indians in the civilizing mission over savagism, whereas, when the immigrants sea rch for sorne roots in the American land, they establish a connection to the indians in order to aquire a symbolic legitimacy in the new continent. Within the generality of Sollors' approach to ethnicity as consent and descent. Erdrich's novel reflects on the differential integration of women and men into the national project of the definüion of ethnicity, as wcll as to the interrelations between gender. ethnicity. and nation. Critic Marie Cornelia has noted that The Master Butcher «is a family saga, a tale of immigrant experience, a young woman's coming of age story and a mystery of sorts. but it is as a study of shifting and fluid identities» that shc mainly considers it in her article. Indeed. those readers familiar with Erdrich's work will soon reali se that the novel goes back in time to articulate a previous stage in the construction of American ethnicity that will then co ntin ue in The Beet Queen (1986), a move that emphasizes thc dynamic component of identit y, which is in constant re/vision. Erdrich's The Master Butcher reflects on th e articulation of ethnicity in direct relation to gender. cmphasizing the interdcpendence of nation and nanation. and the configuration of ethnic and cultural identity as a negotiation of transnational and local variables. The center of the narrative is taken by Fidelis Waldvogel, the German master butcher -a figure inspired by Erdrich 's own grandfa ther - w ho , after fighting in the first war, emigrates to Amc rica with a suitcase full of what will be his means of survival: his butc her knives. Settling down in Argus, North Dakota, with his wife Eva and their four boys. Fidelis will struggle for a living in America a li his life. and he is also thc founder of a singi ng club where the men in town sing so ngs from their tlifferent countri es of origin. Fidelis' story is a gootl example of the arbitrariness of borders of all kinds, as the very b eg inning of the novel already shows: «When he woke in Germany in late November of the year 1918, he was only a few centimeters away from becoming Fr enc h on Clemenceau and Wilson 's r ed rawn ma p, a fact that mattercd nothing comp ared to what there might be to ea t» (MBSC 1). In this se ntence Erdrich summarizes one of the main points made in the book: the nature of boundaries is to a great extcnt due to chance, it is clearly a construction, and it is not half as important as surviving, which has a lot to do with how the discourse of immigration is articulatcd. Fidelis is rccurrently described, especially in those first few pages. as motionless and mo ving, as having strong roots and an urgent need to travel, a dynamic that will define him ali his life: when he returns home from the war , Fidelis goes through a process of r eb irth in his childh ood bed, which he soon aba ndons wh en he r ea li ses that he sh ould emig rate to America to work for a living. Staying and leaving are al so directly associated to the life and death cycle embodied in Fidel is' complex personality: the ability to kill that he has successfully resorted to during the war will grant his survival again as he t ra n sfo!Tl1s slaughtering into a graceful occupation, for, being a butcher, he believes «t here was an art to a propcr killing)> (8). 16 Silvia Manínez Fa/quina Once in America, chance will conlinue to determine a person's location and thcir subsequent definition in political terms: Fidelis settles down in Argus just becau se that is the place where he runs out of money in his journey westwards, an d this accidental event will mark his and his farnily's destiny as Midw esterners. Fidelis now lives in a new country «where Germans were Germans regardless of their regional origins» (MBSC 8). Obviousl y, ba ck in Germany there is no su ch thing as a unifi ed German iden ti ty, but a far from homogeneous compound of groups who conceive of themselves as different to those from other regions. However, et hnicity traveis an d is conslantly reconstructed, there is a need for generalizations a nd , therefore, Ameri ca will treat her immigrants in a simplified, of ten essentialized way, that is, in terms of their common German descent. Erdrich constantly reflects on the ambiguities of such a construction of ethnicity, and on the way immigrants gradually become Americ an s. Af t er an incident with a dog and encouraged by competition in th eir common tra de, Fidelis protagonizes an cpisode of strong anta go ni sm with butcher Pete Kozka - a Polish Ameri ca n who also appears in Th e Beet Que en and Tracks-and «[flor a time, the two b ut cher shops divided the town between t hem , ju st as the Catholic and Lutheran churches did» (MBSC 42). Soon, though, Fidelis starts «what was to become a town institution» (42), his si nging club, which in America <loes not n eed to be segregated by prof ession like it was in Germa ny , and this will be the end of his enmity with Pete Kozka. Th e image of harrnony embodied in the singing club, however, is often contrasted to th e persistence of animosity, co nfr ontation. and evil in general, for every once in a while the town would be reminded that even though it was populated by an army of decent peoplc, even though a rnajority counted thern se lv es pious churchgoers, even th ough Argus prided itself on civic participation, it was not immune. Slrub's Funerary stood flourishing, a testament to the fact that death Jik ed Argus just as much as anywhere else. And evil, th ough it was not co nd oned by the city council, flourished nonetheless, here an d there, in surpri si ng and secret pockets. (43 -44) Death and violence are very r ea l effects of antagonism, a varia ti on of which has to be dealt with at a broader group leve! once World War JI starts in Europe. The mixture of voices of different nationalities that composes the singing club, including German Ame ri ca n, Polish American, Native American and the more established Americans, is in danger of becoming a smaller-scaie reflection of th e European war unless its members clearly redefine themselves as Americans. Hence, German son gs eventually have to be replaced by Am erican patriotic songs, and the Germans in Argus change th eir namcs from Schrnidt to Smith, frorn Buchers to Book, they hang «American flags by their doorways or in their windows,» and they speak «as much English as they knew» (335). These symbols are a clear example of assimilation to the American national identity, or consent and rej ection of the ties of descent, and it is worth pointing out not just the practicality of the rnove, but al so the constructed nature of the meanings resulting from it. Lauise Erdrich 's The Master Butchers Singing Club , or tite Consrruction ... 17 The link with the Old World is not only pre se nt in relation to the immigrant cbaracter s' past, but it will remain strong and complicated into the future in spitc uf their efforts at co nsentcd assimilation. After hav ing been sent back to Gerrnany for an education, Fidelis' two younger sons Erich and bis twin Emil will fight the war on the German side, whereas tbe other two, Franz and Markus, remain on tbe American side. This event offers a good reílection on the construction of Western cthnicity, for characters place themselves on a differcnt s ide of a constructed border depending on their life circumstances, and it is precisely those circumstances that will determine tbcir choice s. Of the two twins, only Erich survives the war and becomes a prisoner of the Americans, but when bis American family finds out a.nd tries to save him, he turns bis back on them, that is, he rejects his descent in favour of the identity he has consentcd to adopt for bim self. After his fierce training and severa! years of formatiun in Gennany, Erich «had become in his deepest person thoroughly German. Or what he thought of as German. That is, he 'd replaced his childbood witb a ncw wash of purity. Belief , death loyalty, hatred of the weak. He lived simply, by une great consuming oath» (MBSC 352). As a result of this choice determined by his particular circumstanccs, Eri ch's fanaticism was that ofthe culturally in secure. He'd struggled to be a Gcrman, and not cv en captivity was going tu destroy what hc'd gone through when shi pp ed off to Ludwigsrnhe. Erich's new father was a boundary on a map. a feeling for a cenain song. a scrap of forcst, a strcet. It was a romance as cnduring as the spilled blood of hi s brother or the Ion ging of Fidelis or the pains of thi s war. lt was an idea that kept him walking through th c prison gates. (364) Louise Erdricb constantly underlines the constructed, even arbitrary nature of such limiting idcologies, and she simultaneously pres cnts the severe conscquences of the oppositional borders placed between groups of people, which determine both the confrontation of membcrs of the same family and death at a large scale. Moreover, Erdrich is making a further point with strong implications in the contemporary globalized world. As Dalia Kandiyoti argues in her article «Multiplicity and its Discontents,» there is a se nse in much of today's criticism that «thc double or multiple attachment affordcd by diasporic modes and sensibilities lead not to disunily, diffusion, and trea so n, as nationalist disco ur s es would maintain, but to a gainful multiplicity of perspectives, languages, and knowledgcs» (10). It is true that Erdticb, not just in The Master Butchers Singing Club but in h er works as a whole, argues for the need to em brace hyhridity and double consciousness, overcoming fixed borders of essentialized definitions.1 However, the notion of transnationalism should i Among thc works that outline this aspee! uf Er<lrich's fiction. thus overcoming thc boundarics of simple ethnic categorization that predominatcs in the cr iticism on h er work, are the articles by Claudia Egcr er a n<l Cathcrine Rainwater, and the volume by Martínez Falquina, Ceremonias Postindias. 18 Silvia Mar tí 11e :: Fu/quina nol be romanticised, just like hybridity or the borderlands sho uld not make us forget th e reality of difference construction and its effects, po sitive a nd negative alike.4 The discourse of immigration as transnationalism in The Master Btttcher combines rupture , fragmentation, a nd loss, together with wholeness, continuity, an d renewal. On thc other hand, within the general struggles involved in lhe immigrant search for belonging, [a]s subjects who are often in a supplcmcntal or adj unt relationship to rcigning definitions of national, ethnic, and racial formations, women may face particular c.:ha ll enges in tcrms of diaspori c.: belonging, with its implications of multiple associations, cach of which may define femaleness in hierarchical and restrictive tcrms. (Walby 7) Accordingly, Erdrich pays a spccial attention to ge ntl er in her novel about the immigrant struggle to belong in a new land ami to co nslru ct a new identity. Besides the malc sc lf and othcr definilion in relation to war, the femalc cxperiences of womcn's work, friendship and moth er hood, both bi ologica l and adoptive, are also dc sc.:ribc d in detail. The main femalc charactcrs are Eva Waldwogel, Fidelis' first wife, who com es from Germany after him with their four so ns, and espe cially Delphine Watzka, who provides sorne interesti ng retlcctions on mothcrhood and na ti onal identit y. Delphine is an American woman of un ccrtain origin who bcfricnds Eva and will, aftcr her death, be com e Fidelis' second wifc and an adoptive mother to his child rc n. Delphine never knew h er mother and this loss «had made Delphine strong, but also caused her to live as a damaged pcrson. a searcher with a hopeless quest, a prac ti cal-minded woman with a streak of dismay» (MBSC 345). She tries to ti ll that void with female companionship like h er childho od friend Clarisse, and Eva Waldvogel, the butcher's wife. It is when she e nt ers Eva's kitchen and tells her part of her story that Dclphine finds sorne sort of rest from her prcvious life as a wanderer. From that mo ment onwards, the two womcn's relationship will be accompanied by their common work at the but chcr's house and sh op , by cooking and baking and taking care of the children. Even though in constant search for ro ot s hersel f, Delphine is consistently descr ibe<.! as a balancing character; stro ng and hardworking, she provides a sense of sec ur ity to t he people arou nd her, es pe cially men. She is the one to take care of her drunken fath er all his life; she also es tablishes a farnily-Iike relationship with Cyprian Lazarre, a homosexual Native American wi th whom Delphine 's initial romantic exp ecta tions are frustrated. F or a while. Cypr ian and Delphine do a balancing trick in a vaudeville act together: Delphin e's strong stomach is the base on which Cyprian balances on a numb er of cha ir s, a very symbolic image of Delphine's link to the land and its pul!. She is gravity and solidity, but Cyprian is an in-between ' For a cr itica! discussion of these an<l other tcrms of ethnic detinition in relation to gendcr an<l Native American identity, sec Martínez Falquina Indias yj hmreras. Louüe Erdrich's The Master Butchers Singing Club, or the Co11struction. .. 19 figure whose fate is not to stay and start a family, so they eventually separate and Delphine settles down in Argus for good. Fundamental to Delphine's characterization is the issue of motherhood, which is typically related to the construction of identity and to nationalism. Absent mothers, a recurren! theme in Erdrich 's fiction,5 symbolize a broken relationship to the past by directly representing a person's desccnt. Dclphine has been denied that link and she becomes a self-made woman who embodies American values of autonomy and evolution through hard work. During all h er Jife she believes she is the daughter of town drunkard Roy Watzka and his mysteriously disappeared heloved Minni e. At his dcathbed. Roy tells Delphine the story of her mother, a mixedhlood Cree and French who witnessed the tragedy of Wounded Knee. Roy portrays Minnie as an outstanding Native American woman Delphine will be proud to be related to. She is. however, just a surrogate mother, for as only we rcaders find out at the end of the novel, Minnie is actually Step-and-a-Half, a restless Native who lives selling othcr pcople's trash, and who found the newborn Delphine in an Argus outhouse after she was abandoned by her biological mother. Step-and-a-Half leaves the baby with Roy and helps him bring her up in the distancc, without Dclphine knowing. whereas Dclphine's blood mother ends up an obese and decadent woman. What is significant in this story about mothers and daughters is that Delphine does have a biological mother nearby, and a woman that she knows but who cruelly abandoned her as a child. Step-and-a-Half saves Delphine's life and ycars later, Roy gives her a link to a mother that will relate her to the American land and to the stories of its original inhabitanh, an idea that has been a typical American search for centuries.1 ' This link is not really biological but symbolic, but its value for Dclphine is undeniable: not only <loes biology mean dcath for her, but thanks to her freedom from those destructive ties and to her father's story, Delphine will become a strong person capable of establishing lasting, consent relations around her, especially for Fidelis and his family of immigrants. Even more ironically, Erdrich has her establish a lifelong friendhip relationship with Mazarine, a gi rl she becomes very fond of and who is actually her biological sister. Neither of th em knows or will know of this. a further affirmation of the value of conscnt rclations of affinity to create family as opposed to those of blood ties. Delphine is the woman who most significantly represents the articulation of American ethnicity in the novel. According to Anthias and Yuval-Davies, there are fi ve major ways in which women are involved in ethnic and national processes: 1. as biological reproducers of members of ethnic collectivities; 2. as reproducers of t he boundaries of ethnic/national groups; ' Among thc many references to the issue uf mothcrhood in Erdrich 's previous work are thc articles by Me ldan Tanrisal, Julie Tharp and Hcrtha Wong. • For an account of examples of this tendency, see Sollors, e sp ec ially 102-I 30. 20 Silvia Mmtínez Fa/quina 3. as participating centrally in thc ideolog ic al reproduction of the collectivity and as transmittcrs of its culture; 4. as sig nifi crs of ethnic/national diffcrenccs -as a focus and symbol in idcological discourses used in the construction, rcproduction and transformation of ethnic/ national catcgories; 5. as participants in national, eco nomi c, political and military struggles. (in Walby 236-37) Delphinc is not a biological mother, so her definition of identity will be centered in consent and not descent. Significantly, she becomes the interpreter of her adopt ed son Markus' «resurrection from the earth» (MBSC 339) after he is accidcntally buried alive, an incident which helps the child come to tcnns with the d ea th of his mother Eva and accept his adoption by Delphine and the American Iand. As for thc sccond aspect in Anthias and Yuval-Davies' dcfinition, Delphine is basically an intcgrative character who do es not reproduce but overcomes ethnic a nd national boundaries: she marries a Gerrnan after having li vcd with a Native Am erican and her role is that of relating people from di ffere nt origins. H er crea tion of a new American family with Fidelis is an example of the overlapping of the personal and the political. for when they marry they are more than indi viduals, they are also representatives of their respective nations of origin coming t oge ther: « It would seem for months afterward that there had been a great collision, that rwo glac ier s had through slow fo rc e smashed together, at la st, and buckled» (306). In relation to point three, Delphine does participate in the idcological reproduction of the American culture and its values: shc is thc one to teach Fideli s' sons and even Fidelis himself the way certain thin gs are done in America, often predicating with her own example. As for point four, Delphine fundamentally signifies American difference as consent, and of American discourse as inclusive of peopl es' individualities. Finally, she participates in economic struggles, at an individual leve] at first, and in the small growing town later. Howe ve r, h er relationship to militarism is onc of rejcction: Delphine knows that Fide li s is deeply damaged from his participation in the first war, and she tr ies to prevent hi s two elder sons to joi n in the second. Although once s he understands that th ey have lo fo llow their own way, she beco rn es completely supportive, Delphine stiU be li eves th at war and the confrontational ideologies l ea ding to it are not the way to rnake any real progress. Her pru.ticipation in the articulation of Ame ri can identity, therefore, is not defined in oppositional but integrative te nn s, and as s he defends individu al differcnces shc also stresses relation. In contrast to the figure of Delphine, Eva, mot her of four children, who speaks wilh a strong German accent and misses the « Old World Qualit y» that she has left bchind (MBSC 95), does not survive in the New World but painfully dies of cancer severa] years after her arrival. Fidelis' sister Tante does not adapt to America and after h er failure to work and go up in the world as she cxpected, she goes back to Germany, taking her younger nephews with her. Delphine's childhood friend Clarisse, a more settled American, eventually has to leave the town after murdering an obsessive úmise Enirich 's The Master Butchers Singíng Club. or the Cml.l'tr11cti011 ... 21 man who was constantly harrassing her, and her struggle for independence from this mate power costs her prosperous job as a funerary practitioner, an unconventional position for a woman that she will not be able to keep. In contras! to these characters, Dc lphine's struggle and hard work will confirm h er as a survivor in the Midwest em town of Argus and as an embodiment of American national values: she starts off being the daughter of a poor drunkard, but she survives the hard years of the Depression and makes progress in the butcher shop and in a new plant shop she starts after Fide li s' death, becoming a respected worker in the town in the process. Another significant aspect of the articulation of ethnicity and the different stages of nation formation in The Master Butcher.v Singing Club is the prcsence of two Native Ame rican characters, Step-and-a-Half and Cyprian Lazarre. It is worth pointing out that, although Am erica was supposedly a democracy in the l 840s when white men won suffrage, characters like Step-and-a-Half or Cyprian would not be able to vote and would be strongly marginalized until at least the 1960s. As has already been outlined, Stcp-and-a-Half is a living history of terrible events that originated in the Western-Native confrontation, and as a result she is fated to constantly walk in order not to stop and hear her own memories, an experience that serves h er her name. Cyprian Lazarre is also a marginal figure in both his homosexuality and mixedblood ethnicity. He is métis, a descendant of Chippewa peoples mixed with the French, and he claims the famous l ea der Louis Riel as an ancesto r. lt is Midwestern America in the 1920s, and as Cyprian knows, being an indian is not a small thing to admit in Argus, so, for a while, Delphine is the only one who k.nows about his ethnic origin. The fact that the two Native characters have a special link to Delphine confirms her as the key figure that integratcs different individuals a nd ethnicities. After he leaves Argus, Cyprian starts another performance with his lover, a Jew from Lithuania, and at tirst they perceive each other as differcnt am i unknown: Cyprian mentions that «l was a real curiosity to him at first ,» and similarly, his reaction to his new friend is of curiosity towards the other, for «ltlhere's no Jews on the reservation» (MBSC 317). Ethnicity usually involves the definition of the other as different, which entails the articulation of a boundary, bul in this particular situation, two people who are doubly considered other -because of their ethnic origin and sexual orientationare perfectly capable of overcoming their diffcrcnces and working and living togethcr. Cyprian's relationship to Fidelis is more complex, neverthcless. Even though thcy both sing in the club together, the growing animosity betwecn them, or iginating in their common !ove for Delphine, leads them to fight each other violently. In stead of justifying their mutual dislike as a result of their feelings for Delphine, they find a more acceptable excuse in th e fact that they fought the first war on opposite si des. The personal and the political come together in these characters' confrontation, but when Fidelis' son Markus is buried alive and Cyprian saves him, Fidelis has no option but to forgive him. War at a smaller or larger scale, Erdrich argues, is not as importan! as day-to-day survival. In spitc of the often trivial or coincidental origins of confrontation, the construction of borders docs det erm i ne death, as cpisodes likc the two world wars