How Does Joe Mature In The Round House

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Time as a youth is finite, and the transition from childhood to adulthood is inevitable. Though everyone undergoes this transition, it has captured the minds of readers in coming-of-age novels, where the author documents the how a character enters his or her adulthood. Along the way towards adulthood, a character faces many realizations about themselves and the world around them, and learns from these realizations and develops as a character. This learning experience for thirteen-year-old Joe is retold in The Round House by Louise Erdrich. Born to a relatively well-off Native American family, Joe’s life begins to change with his mother’s rape. Wanting to find his mother’s rapist, Joe begins to look into the lives of adults around him and makes realizations because of this, teaching him about not only himself but also the world around him. With the help of adults and parental aid, Joe progresses from his youth to adulthood, and thus accepts the harsh realities of his world. Though Joe’s father initially attempts to hold the truth of Indian affairs…show more content…
One of these realities he is forced to accept is about the tribal affairs, which he learns from his father and tells him how difficult it is for his father, and Native Americans in general, to make charges against criminals, in this case, his mother’s rapist. Another is that he is either an adult or a child and that he cannot expect people to give him treatment as though he is both, taught to him by his aunt Sonja. This idea is tied with reality that he is actually an adult, shown by his mother, since he has moved away from being dependent on his parent to being able to act on his own. Though some may say thirteen is too young for one to be expected to act as an adult, Joe has become a young adult and has learned much in the
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  • The Round House Analysis

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    the real world because/due of/to the loss of innocence that can come from aging or from being forcibly driven out by experiences. In the book The Round House by Louise Erdrich, the choice to throw away innocence for the sake of justice is made. This is due to the constant restraints and complications created by the United States federal court and how the U.S law differentiates with tribal law. In the story, the protagonist’s, mother was brutally raped but was able to escape. After authorities find

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