Skunk Dreams Response

I have never particularly disliked skunks (I actually rather like their smell, from a great distance), but I can't honestly say that I have ever thought of them as being spiritually transcendent.

Louise Erdrich writes universally, "The obstacles we overcome define us." In her own experience, she wants to preserve beyond her death the self she has created by laboring through obstacles. However, her desire itself forms another obstacle, similar to the fencing around the preserved wilderness of the game park. She encounters the impermeable barrier even in her dreams, which mirror her waking life rather than a disembodied afterlife without limits.

The author imagines that the skunk also has dreams similar to its waking life (although she admits she can't be sure). The skunk, on the other hand, sees no obstacles in either realm. It passes through the fences, does as it pleases, and does not fear death.

Erdrich carefully details her changing definition of out, which is similar to the skunk's ellusive state of serenity. It represents her maturing thirst for something greater and freer than her limited human experience. At first the only place she identifies as out is her childhood home, the familiar and obviously expansive West. Later, she learns to accept the new and complex environment of the Northeast even though it lacks the drama she required as a teenager. When she finally discovers and enters the game park from her dream, she defines out as in. Rather than looking outside herself for an afterlife, she finds preservance by overcoming her inner obstacles. She has gained the Confidence of the Skunk.