In the movie “The Sweetest Thing”, the character Courtney challenges her friend to explore how she really feels about her current love interest by saying, “Half of what people say when they’re joking is the truth.” Though this may not be a proven statistic, it highlights an important aspect of humor: its truth telling ability. In the novel Tracks by Louise Erdrich, the truth telling ability of humor is apparent throughout the book. Not only do the characters in the story exhibit humor purposefully, but the writer also puts the characters in situations which the reader finds humorous, though the characters do not. In Tracks, “The Sweetest Thing”, and in everyday life, humor tells the truth we are not always willing to admit to the world.
The greatest displays of humor exhibiting truth can be found in the character Nanapush. Nanapush is an aging Chippewa Indian. He holds true to the old ways and is considered a “trickster,” or someone who is a source of humor, in Native American culture. The novel surrounds itself around Nanapush and his life in North Dakota with his adopted family of Margaret, Fleur, Lulu, Eli, and Pauline, who acts as nuisance to them all with her adoption of “white ways. Throughout the novel this make-shift family faces many hard times including harsh winters and the loss of their lands to the government for non-payment of taxes.
They are also caught in many conflicts with the “whites”. Tension arises when “whites” attempt to convert them to Christianity, change their system of government and their culture in general. At the end of the novel it appears that the “white” ways have in fact conquered them when Fleur, Nanapush’s assumed daughter, loses her land, sends Lulu, Fleur’s daughter, to a government school, and renounces Eli, Fleur’s assumed husband and Lulu’s father. However, Nanapush and Margaret, Nanapush’s love interest and Eli’s mother, end up living together on Margaret’s family lands for the remainder of their days, keeping touch with Lulu so that they might one day take care of her once she gradate from the government school.
In the book, Erdrich uses Nanapush’s “trickster” personality as comic relief through snide and crude remarks. For example, Nanapush tells jokes to insult the ways of the “whites”. In particular, he insults not only Pauline, a religious fanatic, but Christianity in general. When approached by Father Damien about the possibility of Nanapush and Margaret getting married, Nanapush snidely remarks, “I’m having relations with Margaret already…That’s the way we do things,” (Erdrich 123).
Not only does Nanapush offend the sanctity of marriage in this remark, he also shows defiance towards the Christian religion by emphasizing he has another way of living life that he doesn’t want encroached upon. Later on in the same scene Nanapush insults the act of confession by telling Father Damien that he stole the wire from his piano. This causes Father Damien to get upset and say, “Discord is hateful to God. You have offended His ear.” Nanapush follows this up with another smart comment saying, “You can have the wire back,” (Erdrich 124). He insults Christianity as a way of taking back the power from a force he feels is taking over the society he knows.
Furthermore, Nanapush uses humor several times in the novel to downplay things he has done wrong in the past. At the beginning of Chapter 3 Nanapush recalls his father’s rationale for naming him such: “Because it’s got to do with something a girl can’t resist. The first Nanapush stole fire. You will steal hearts,” (Erdrich 33). Later on in the chapter Nanapush senses that Eli wants to hear how he “satisfied three wives” and attempts to makes light of the fact that he has slept with married women.
To avoid the subject, Nanapush turns to Eli’s sex life by saying, “I won’t bite you like the little girls,” (Erdrich 41). Though humor, Nanapush takes the emphasis off of his wrong doing. This displays the truth telling aspect of humor because one can begin to realize this pattern in Nanapush’s personality and from then on readily identify when he is trying to skirt around an issue in his past.
There is also much sexual humor in the novel which highlights the love relationships that exist, but are kept hidden, in the novel. For example, in Chapter 3 Margaret comes to Nanapush outraged. Who learned my Eli to make love standing up!” When Nanapush does not respond in accordance with what Margaret would like to hear she says, “Old man, two wrinkled berries and a twig.” Nanapush quickly taunts, “A twig can grow,” (Erdrich 48). The humor in this exchange allows the reader to realize the attraction between Nanapush and Margaret which will eventually flourish into a more public relationship further into the novel.
In addition to the humorous things she has the characters say, Erdrich also uses humor as a truth telling device through the actions of the characters. In Chapter 6, we learn of some of Pauline’s actions to become closer to Christ. Not only are the things which Pauline is willing to do humorous, but her dedication and seriousness also become a main source of humor in Chapter 6. For example, Pauline recounts that she “…made a set of underwear from potato sacks…”. She said, “…When I wore it the chafing reminded me of Christ’s sacrifice,” (Erdrich 143). In addition, Pauline goes to further lengths to experience the suffering of Christ when she wears her shoes on the wrong feet.
Finally, Pauline seems to believe that she can show her dedication to Christ through not bathing. She remarks, “[God] would rather have a good soul that stank like a cheese then a bad soul fragranced with rose oil and myrrh. My rank aroma was the perfume my soul exuded, devotion’s air,” (Erdrich 153). The truth telling aspect of humor in Pauline’s case lies in her willingness to go to extremes. Born one-quarter white, Pauline had a strange obsession with becoming “white” in dress, speech, and most importantly religion. The fact that she was willing to go to such extremes to prove that she was dedicated to Christianity, the “white” religion, shows her desperation to leave her Native American identity behind in favor of an assimilated lifestyle.
The use of humor can lend insight into the characters in Tracks. This insight can then be applied to society at large and tell us very important things about how the intrusion of one’s culture into another can affect that culture. It can also show us that we often use humor in everyday life to mask things we are ashamed of and secrets we hold. Indeed, half of everything we say jokingly we mean; if not more than half. Louise Erdrich does a fine job of displaying this through the characters’ actions and remarks in the book Tracks. Works Cited
Erdrich, Louise. Tracks. New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 1988.
