TRACKS: Meanings

The struggle for survival is one of the most obvious themes in Tracks. All the major characters in the novel are survivors of not only the environment, famines, and epidemics, but also the historical reality of genocide, dispossession, and deprivation. Despite the sense of doom overshadowing the entire Matchimanito reservation upon the encroachment of outside interests, however, upholders of the tribe’s cultural tradition have fought in the best way they can: Fleur by crushing the lumber crew and Nanapush by campaigning for the position of tribal chairman.

The struggle for survival, which reaches tragic proportions, is closely related to the theme of cultural conflict. Ostensibly, the Christianity of Pauline, though half-baked, is pitted against the traditional wisdom of Nanapush, who is nevertheless conversant with white culture. The native way of life, together with its tribal kinship system and symbiotic relationship with the environment, is challenged by the white way of life, including its nuclear family, exploitation of natural resources, greed for land, and oppression by legal codes. The mixed-bloods, caught between the two ways of life, lean toward one pole or the other, but while adapting to the cultural change, they also exhibit symptoms of dysfunctionality and confusion. Their predicament, which is epitomized by the conversion of Pauline, pervasive alcoholism, incestuous marriages aimed at amassing land, the subsequent loss of land due to swindling, the disintegration of family ties, and so forth, is also a kind of tragedy bordering on pathos.

Out of the entropic and fragmentary chaos created by cultural conflict, however, in Tracks there are also prospects of a cultural synthesis, which conceivably could begin from the mutual “contamination” of the white and the native cultural conditions. Pauline’s Christianity, for example, is rife with indigenous beliefs and visions, whereas Nanapush, despite his traditionalism, is conditionally receptive to the white practices that hold promises for the revival of the tribe. These mutual “contaminations” suggest the possibility of certain cultural exchanges that might lead to a new consciousness for the community.

The drive toward a new consciousness is in fact the motivating force behind the seemingly dichotomized perspectives of Nanapush and Pauline, whose narratives are dialogic rather than mutually exclusive, though in the competition for credibility and authority it is Nanapush’s narrative that succeeds in reestablishing a sense of order. Significantly, the implied audience of Nanapush, Lulu, can be regarded as the receptacle of the new consciousness. Growing up in the middle of her mother’s struggles but educated at the government school, where she is segregated from her traditional heritage, Lulu is not unlike the mixed-bloods trapped between two worlds. Nanapush exhorts her to seek out Fleur, and despite her resistance to his narrative (she stops her ears), she is inevitably reintroduced to her roots and the destiny of her people. Although the formation of the new consciousness hinges on Lulu’s willingness and ability to integrate the two cultures in her future life, Nanapush has left enough tracks for the pursuit through his artful storytelling.

Balance Chow. "Tracks." Masterplots II: American Fiction Series, Revised Edition. Salem Press, 2000. 1 Jun, 2009