« “Nothing? » said mom in a piercing tone, "nothing to go home with?" She gave me a brief, meaningful look. After all, I had come home, even without a husband, without children, behind the wheel of a ruined car” (Erdrich, 13). Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned"? Get the original essay This moment from Louis Erdrich's Love Medicine captures Albertine Johnson's life in a memory after the death of her aunt, June, as she sits in a kitchen with her mother and her aunt, Aurelia. Albertine, like many people of her generation, attempted to move away from the reservation, receive an education off the reservation, and maintain a means of subsistence and a new life in a more stereotypical American lifestyle – not that of a Chippewa Native American. Aurelia and Zelda, Albertine's mother, wonder why June was in the middle of nowhere the winter evening she froze to death. They face his death by searching for the why and how behind it. Aurelia simply states that there is no reason for June to walk home, as life on the reservation offered her nothing. Offended by the implication that a life could be nonexistent without the reciprocal love of a husband or great successes to share, Zelda retorts with the simple question "Nothing to come home to?" (Erdrich, 13 years old). Because her daughter has returned even though she apparently has no reason to return home. The aforementioned passage holds significance in this novel because it presents the characters' constant struggle to define their home and the reasons why they return or stay where they call home. The characters in Love Medicine are complicated, very different and full of surprises. However, there is one constant throughout their lives: the reserve and the family community they find there. Some characters are estranged from their biological parents but welcomed by others, some characters stay with one or two biological parents, others try to leave their families behind and make their own way. Regardless of the course of their lives, escaping from the reservation community is virtually impossible. People are extremely interconnected through their heritage, sexual relationships, subsequent adoptions, and marriages. Younger generations of Chippewa children are trying to live off the reservation. Albertine, for example, led an adequate life in American society. She is educated, lives alone and has a job. However, the news of her aunt's death sends her running home. She didn't come back for a specific reason, but has to deal with the loss of one of her own. This aunt, her role model and inspiration, perished, so part of her definition of life perished as well. Only by returning to the place that formed her, to the people who can understand her loss, can she accept it and leave behind a lasting, fully formed individual again. Like others of her generation, she relies on the steadfastness of the Chippewa community to enable her experiential life to exist. A bit like Albertine, Marie Lazarre, her grandmother experienced leaving the reserve. Marie wanted to shed her wild and untamed family reputation by joining the nuns on the hill. Here she could transform herself into a saint, a person revered and glorified instead of being the girl associated not only with Indians, but also with lower class Indians. She wanted a new life elsewhere. However, when life in the convent became difficult, when she felt threatened and mistreated by the nuns, she ran home. Marie, after having climbed the.