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Mary’s Mother
Louise Flood was Mary’s grandmother on Mary’s mother’s side. Louise and her husband, Noble Moore, raised Mary and her siblings because Mary’s mother—who was the only financial provider after her husband, Bill Moore, left her—couldn’t be home with her children because she worked in a hospital many miles away. Louise was a Lakota woman, but she had converted to Christianity and refused to teach Mary the Lakota language or any Lakota cultural traditions. She believed that “going to church, dressing and behaving like a [white person] […] was the key which would magically unlock the door leading to the good life, the white life.” Louise’s attitude was not an uncommon one on reservations, and the belief that Native Americans had to assimilate to white society in order to survive and prosper was one of the reasons that indigenous cultural traditions began to die out.
Louise Flood Quotes in Lakota Woman
The Lakota Woman quotes below are all either spoken by Louise Flood or refer to Louise Flood. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
).
Chapter 2
Quotes
[Grandma Moore] thought she was helping me by not teaching me Indian ways. Her being a staunch Catholic also had something to do with it. The missionaries had always been repeating over and over again: “You must kill the Indian in order to save the man!” That was part of trying to escape the hard life. The missions, going to church, dressing and behaving like a wasičun—that for her was the key which would magically unlock the door leading to the good life, the white life with a white-painted cottage […] a shiny car in the garage, and an industrious, necktie-wearing husband who was not a wino. Examples abounded all around her that it was the wrong key to the wrong door, that it would not change the shape of my cheekbones, or the slant of my eyes, the color of my hair, or the feelings inside me.
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Louise Flood Quotes in Lakota Woman
The Lakota Woman quotes below are all either spoken by Louise Flood or refer to Louise Flood. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
).
Chapter 2
Quotes
[Grandma Moore] thought she was helping me by not teaching me Indian ways. Her being a staunch Catholic also had something to do with it. The missionaries had always been repeating over and over again: “You must kill the Indian in order to save the man!” That was part of trying to escape the hard life. The missions, going to church, dressing and behaving like a wasičun—that for her was the key which would magically unlock the door leading to the good life, the white life with a white-painted cottage […] a shiny car in the garage, and an industrious, necktie-wearing husband who was not a wino. Examples abounded all around her that it was the wrong key to the wrong door, that it would not change the shape of my cheekbones, or the slant of my eyes, the color of my hair, or the feelings inside me.
Related Characters:
Related Symbols:
Related Themes:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
