53 pages • 1 hour read
Louise ErdrichFuture Home of the Living God
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2017A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Themes
The Multifaceted Nature of Motherhood
Cedar’s journey exposes her to many different versions of motherhood as she comes to terms with her own maternity.
Sera is Cedar’s adoptive mother, providing the cornerstone of Cedar’s experience of motherhood. While the women are not biologically related, Cedar learns from Sera that motherhood is as much about actions as it is about blood. Even after Cedar learns the identity of her biological mother, she never stops viewing Sera as her “mom” (149). At the same time, Cedar meets Mary Potts, her biological mother, whom Cedar comes to view as an older sister. Mary’s relationship with her daughter Little Mary (Cedar’s half-sister) as well as her brief relationship with Cedar provide new perspectives on motherhood, which Cedar incorporates into her own definition. The theme of motherhood is not expressed in a single person. Rather, Cedar comes to learn that motherhood is multi-faceted and complicated, and that it transcends biological inheritance—a stance which flies in the face of the utilitarian, biologistic philosophy of the new government.
Indeed, the Church of the New Constitution demonstrates an understanding of motherhood that is based purely on a woman’s ability to reproduce, essentially rendering her a means of production. As a result, the state implements a kind of codified rape, imprisoning women and forcing them to procreate and give birth to children who are then taken away. The Church’s machinations illustrate how motherhood cannot be wholly equated to biology, as this treatment of motherhood utterly excludes the relational maternal elements that Cedar appreciates from Sera and others. Cedar rejects the Church’s tenets, even after they take her child from her. She still sees herself as her baby’s mother and still writes in her diary to try and support her child in any way she can. Despite her wretched captivity, Cedar never relinquishes what she learned from the mother figures in her own life.
The Search for Identity
Future Home of the Living God is the story of Cedar’s search for an identity, and she wishes to figure out her place in the world through her relationship to others. As an adopted child with Native American ancestry, she has always felt as though something is missing from her life. She was raised by the Songmakers and given a comfortable, middle-class life, but she yearns to understand her origins. Her life was listlessly adrift until she became pregnant with Phil’s child; this sudden change prompts her to investigate her family history so that she can better understand her own identity, as she does not want her child to inherent her sense of emptiness. Cedar maintains the diary for her unborn child, but her writing also serves the purpose of documenting her search for an identity—and her diary thus symbolizes this search.
Eddy is an intellectual who experiences suicidal ideation. He is working on a book that will never be published. Over the course of thousands of pages, he presents a litany of reasons why suicide is unnecessary. His theses are delivered in a sardonic tone, but they are nevertheless symptomatic of his depressed state. He failed to overhaul his reservation’s education system, so now he staves off his feelings of worthlessness by forcing himself to observe and document his myriad reasons to live. Eddy stops writing when he finds purpose in his life, and the collapse of society brings Eddy a new identity as he helps to reclaim the land stolen from his people. He exchanges his identity as a depressed writer for the identity of tribal leader. This search for a new, higher identity mirrors Cedar’s search for meaning in her life.
Not all searches end well. Phil once saw himself as a hero, a savior of women persecuted by the Church of the New Constitution. When he betrays Cedar, however, he can no longer cling to this identity. Phil’s loss of himself is as damaging as the physical torture he endures. He becomes broken and ashamed of his actions. Phil’s search for identity ends in tragedy when he believes his heroism is irrevocably forsaken.
Native American Resilience
Cedar and her biological family have Native American ancestry. More than just an ethnic identity, this family ancestry provides an important historical context for the social collapse depicted in the novel. Cedar begins the narrative by contacting her biological mother and traveling to the reservation where her family live. The reservation’s occupants are somewhat separate from the mainstream white American society, and Cedar describes the reservation as a foreign, disorienting world. She gets lost and must ask for directions—a symbol of her otherness, despite her common ancestry with the people who live there.
Cedar gradually acquaints herself with the geography and culture of the reservation, embracing her heritage and learning her people’s history. As Eddy tells her, “diseases killed ninety-nine percent” (87) of the Native Americans. Through this historical genocide, the Natives have their own precedent for dystopia—and their survival is a staggering testament to their resilience. Cedar’s education about her family history coincides with the collapse of the world she used to inhabit. As white America falls apart, Eddy rebuilds the tribal community and provides Cedar with a safe place to live. A catastrophe in the past teaches those in the present; the Native American experience helps Eddy and Cedar to endure the hardships that they now face.
The community Eddy builds on the reservation contrasts with the terrifying world that Cedar escapes. Cities are taken over by zealots who freely practice many shades of barbarism. In contrast, the Native American reservation becomes a safe destination for refugee pilgrims. As one society falls apart, another rises in its place. The Native American people, who were brought to the brink of extinction, endure long beyond the society of their colonizing oppressors. Native American history, identity, and culture are key threads in the novel, especially as they survive and contrast with white society.
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