Transforming Identity and Space Through Relational Lines in Louise Erdrich’s Books and Islands in Ojibwe Country and Lisa Bird-Wilson’s Probably Ruby

Abstract

This paper challenges the Western, colonial notion of lines as divisive boundaries and instead, cultivates a reading practice that reveals the transformative potential of the line. In my analysis of two texts written by Indigenous authors, I reflect on the connection between space and stories by considering how each protagonist depicts their surroundings and its consequent effects on their identities through the framework of the relational line. In her memoir Books and Islands in Ojibwe Country (2003), Louise Erdrich (Ojibwe) travels through the land of her ancestors and in her descriptions of rock paintings, she remarks how the line “is a sign of power and communication” as it relays ancestral knowledge (45). I confirm Erdrich’s assertion in my interpretation of the representation of lines within Erdrich’s memoir as agents of interaction. This paper considers the reciprocal potential of lines in Erdrich’s depictions of land and the land’s ties to her identity, which she illustrates as inseparable from tradition and results in her reclamation of space. Because of the framework’s inherently interactive nature, I extend my analysis to a second text: Lisa Bird-Wilson’s (Métis and nēhiyaw) novel Probably Ruby (2020). My decision to analyze these two texts in tandem relates to how they enact Daniel Heath Justice’s “process of becoming” through their nuanced depictions of identity and contrasted renderings of space. I propose that Erdrich’s memoir highlights the process that Ruby encounters, wherein one’s connection to land and ancestral stories is unknown because of their removal and distance from their Indigenous heritage, which occurs through Ruby’s adoption, and results in a more abstract network of relationships and setting. Erdrich’s text prompts a compelling discussion of Ruby’s story, since it responds to the difficulty of a more abstract reclamation, with Ruby unable to navigate a physical space filled with an understanding of tradition that Erdrich is granted. I argue that through their movements that extend and return, the lines in these texts illustrate the protagonists’ reclamation of their spaces while also challenging the boundaries of lines.