The Game of Silence

In The Game of Silence, Erdrich emphasizes that the true importance of home is symbolic, for it is a state of mind and is not necessarily limited to a physical location. Early in the novel, Erdrich foreshadows the loss of what Omakayas considers to be home. When the displaced Ojibwes arrive on her island, the narrative introduces the foreboding idea that all the Ojibwe peoples will be similarly forced out of their lands. As the narrative states, “They would all fear to lose something huge, something so important that they never even knew that they had it in the first place. Who questions the earth, the ground beneath your feet? They had always accepted it—always here, always solid. That something was home” (19). This passage reveals that it is easy to take home for granted when its loss has never been a possibility. Omakayas has been raised in the same place since birth, and the land that grounds her home has been good to the Ojibwe people for generations. From this perspective, the loss of home becomes a much deeper loss of the people’s cultural history and legacy. They are therefore unsettled by the idea that their home could one day be taken from them. However, as the story unfolds, Omakayas comes to redefine her understanding of “home” when she discovers that the concept resides not within the land, but within the family unit. She ultimately concludes that no matter where she goes, she will be “home” as long as she is with her family.

The progression of this philosophical shift is shown through many different experiences that Omakayas has with her family, such as the comforting feeling of Nokomis’s physical characterizations. For example, the narrative describes her grandmother’s gentle touch, which could nonetheless “pull a rough medicine root or pinch off a bleeding vein” (215) and she relishes the moment when “Nokomis [holds her] close, as though one set of thoughts traveled between them” (215). Nokomis’s hands therefore become a symbol of familial love, for when she is secure in Nokomis’s gentle but toughened hands, Omakayas feels at home. Nokomis is the strength of Omakayas’s family; she is loving, generous, and reliable, and her presence informs Omakayas’s understanding of what a home truly is. Therefore, wherever Nokomis goes, home follows, and this characterization transforms the concept of home into something far more metaphorical and flexible than a single physical location.

In a major moment of plot development, Erdrich depicts the Ojibwes packing their belongings and leaving what they once knew as home, likely forever. As the narrative states, “All that they possessed and had collected over the years on the island was before them. […] They could not take their cabin, their sweet cedar cabin by the pine, and they could not take Makataywazi” (239). In this quote, Makataywazi, Omakayas’s dog, is the symbol of the love that is left behind when people are forced to leave their home against their will. The entire history of Omakayas’s family becomes a collection of their belongings and their memories, but the heartbreak of leaving Makataywazi behind is also representative of the idea that a home always metaphorically belongs to the original homeowner. By leaving a piece of herself behind in the form of Makataywazi, Omakayas never truly and fully abandons what she once knew as her home. Even though she will make a new home elsewhere, Makataywazi will always be the representative of her family in her former home.

In the final moments of the novel, Erdrich transitions from the message of the loss of the home as a tragedy to the more hopeful idea that leaving one home means finding another. As the Ojibwe people travel farther away from their now-stolen home, Omakayas decides, “Here, after all, was not only danger but possibility. Here was adventure. Here was the next life they would live together on this earth” (248). The use of the pronoun “they” indicates that the strength and importance of the home lies in the community of the family and the tribe. Wherever they go, they are at home because they are together. They may have been displaced from their home, but in Omakayas’s mind, they are going on an adventure together: a new journey to establish a new home. Thus, redefining home therefore becomes a regenerative process, which means that home can never truly be lost. This idea stands in defiance of the white government that has abused, dehumanized, and stolen from the Ojibwe tribe. Despite these many injustices, it is clear that losing their home to white oppression has not broken the spirit of the Ojibwe people.