The Sentence

This section of the novel begins with a symbolic burning. Tookie decides to rely on Indigenous American spiritual customs and burn the gifts she received from Flora, hoping to sacrifice Flora’s belongings and free her spirit. When this doesn’t work, Tookie continues to worry about Flora’s ghost. Her attempt at productive burning juxtaposes later images of Minneapolis burning during riots and looting. One particularly hurtful loss through these fires is the total destruction of Migizi, an organization in Minneapolis created as a library for Indigenous American texts and a center for community outreach.

In this section Erdrich focuses primarily on important real-life American events. She uses the term “signal event,” which refers to typically human-made events marked by a signal and important because they often lead to ripple effects in legislation. This term foreshadows Erdrich’s description of George Floyd’s murder and the ensuing riots and protests in Minneapolis. Because of a viral video, George Floyd’s death at the hands of Minneapolis police became a worldwide call against police brutality and for the rights of marginalized peoples. On May 25, 2020, the 46-year-old Black man George Floyd was arrested by Minneapolis police after a convenience store reported that he bought cigarettes with a counterfeit bill. One of the police officers kneeled on Floyd’s neck, suffocating him to death. The cruelty of the murder, the unnecessary use of violence, and the violation of several civil rights and police policies led to the firing and arrests of these police officers. However, Floyd’s murder quickly became symbolic of the rampant police brutality and structures of violence imposed on people of color throughout the US and the world. In addition, it represents the power of technology, as the filming and dissemination of the murder meant that everyone bore witness to the injustice and trauma of watching a man die for no reason at the hands of institutions labeled as protectors of the community. Minneapolis activists responded to the murder with protests, which rapidly turned violent when Minneapolis police used tear gas to break up protesters. The chaos and hurt turned into numerous riots and looting that destroyed businesses around the city and produced a dangerous and tense environment.

In the novel, George Floyd’s murder becomes a “signal event” because it forces characters (as it did real-life citizens) to reckon with and acknowledge the systemic racism that informs American institutions. For Tookie and her family and friends, this signal event reignites past trauma. The Indigenous American community was decimated through systemized genocide during the centuries that founded the current-day US. Penalizing and restrictive laws that kept Indigenous Americans bound to reservations and suffocated by poverty and addiction have ensured that Indigenous people struggle to establish themselves beyond dehumanizing stereotypes in the American media and cultural consciousness. Indigenous communities have witnessed numerous signal events, but their plight often goes unnoticed or ignored, leading to a lack of accountability and progress.

George Floyd’s murder hits Pollux particularly hard. Popular cries to defund the police turn into political slogans, but Pollux doesn’t agree with the idea that all police officers are bad and that less money would ensure more safety. Having been a police officer, he knows how police officers can literally save lives and keep peace in the city. However, Pollux isn’t a stranger to the racism of the police department. As an Indigenous American police officer, Pollux was always torn between serving his community and fighting the influence of white American approval. His arrest of Tookie is one of his final acts as a police officer, as arresting one of his own people is too conflicting. Pollux sees the brutality and injustice in George Floyd’s murder, but he also advocates for rehabilitation of police institutions instead of villainizing all police. Pollux is both a historical victim and a perpetrator, and the riots protesting Floyd’s murder confuse his ethical standards and make him think deeply about his past in ways Hetta and Tookie can’t relate to. Tookie isn’t the only haunted character; Pollux is haunted by his past as a police officer.

The novel explores two examples of victimization and dehumanization of Indigenous Americans by white American police institutions. Emphasizing the theme The Resilience and Importance of Indigenous American Identity, Erdrich advocates for Indigenous American rights through her allusions to the American Indian Movement (AIM) and the signal event at Standing Rock. AIM was founded in Minneapolis in 1968 to protect Indigenous rights and manage communal property but expanded into an organization that protects the rights and safeties of all Indigenous Americans facing the ripple effects of colonization, such as police brutality and over-representation in incarceration rates. Standing Rock is an Indigenous reservation on the South and North Dakota border. In 2015, the Oceti Sakowin (or “Sioux”) tribe of the reservation began official legal protests against a plan by an energy company to violate their land with a pipeline to transport oil. These protests started on a grassroots level but swiftly became national news. The Standing Rock protests may have been specifically about the pipeline, but in spirit they represented the continued violation and desecration of Indigenous land and culture. The Oceti Sakowin have the legal rights to act as their own nation, as do other tribes, but the majority-white US government often overlooks treaties protecting reservation rights. By alluding to AIM and Standing Rock, Erdrich points to the importance of Indigenous American rights in contemporary America. She connects these allusions to the Floyd case to show that although Floyd’s murder started a worldwide movement, Indigenous Americans and other communities of color have fought violently racist institutions for centuries.

Floyd’s murder informs external conflict that becomes the background for other external and internal conflicts and developments in the novel. One of the more positive outcomes of the community coming together in the face of violence and eminent danger is that Hetta’s relationship with Tookie improves. Hetta leaves Jarvis in Tookie’s care as she goes to the protests with Asema. Knowing that Jarvis is safe with Tookie and uncovering the odd truth about Tookie’s past with Pollux establishes a new respect between the two women. Hetta starts calling Tookie “Mom,” which brings them closer together. This development emphasizes the importance of finding the silver lining in even the worst moments and highlights the theme The Power of Love as Redemption. Erdrich shows how division because of COVID and especially signal events can give people the perspective to unite and better understanding what’s important, as petty differences dissipate when cities burn.

Another ghost haunts Tookie when a loyal Birchbark Books customer, Roland (nicknamed Dissatisfaction because of his picky literary tastes) is hospitalized and his dog Gary dies, alluding to the theme The Unpredictability of Life. Tookie sees Gary outside her store before she learns about the dog’s death. Gary’s ghost brings Tookie a message about Roland. In some Indigenous American spiritual understandings, animals can take on a loyal human’s spirit. In addition, Gary the spirit dog emphasizes the importance of independent bookstores in people’s lives. Like Flora’s ghost, Gary visits the store, which celebrates the identities and ethos of those who value independent bookstores.

Erdrich includes an important plot twist in Chapter 13 when Asema discovers the truth about The Sentence containing Flora’s identity. Erdrich doesn’t make this identity totally clear, foreshadowing more resolutions in the novel’s final chapters. The narrative reveals Asema as a necessary secondary character because her research and determination help begin the healing process for Flora’s ghost and Tookie’s past. This plot twist reemphasizes the importance of books as spaces of truth, even dark or ugly truths.

Another revelation in Chapter 13 is that Tookie’s has a history of a mental health condition. Given her years of trauma, this is understandable, but the possibility of her being committed to a psychiatric hospital is an implied threat, suggesting that she could become another dehumanizing statistic as an Indigenous American with mental health “issues.” Tookie’s mental health history poses some problems for her in the present. First, it makes her family and friends suspicious of her grip on reality, and they wonder whether Flora’s ghost is all in Tookie’s head. Second, it reveals a reason for Hetta’s resentment of Tookie, as Hetta needs or wants stability from her parental figures. Third, it highlights one of the limitations of first-person point-of-view narration: First-person narrators are unreliable. Erdrich thus leaves open the question of whether Tookie’s interpretation of Flora’s ghost is as real as she thinks it is.