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Wild Geese

Summary: Wild Geese 

Told in the voice of Nector Kashpaw when he is fourteen years old, this story tells how Nector and Marie meet in 1934. He and his brother, Eli, have killed two wild geese which Nector carries into town to sell to the nuns at Sacred Heart Convent. He thinks about Lulu Nanapush, the girl he is dating. When he sees Marie running away from the convent with an SHC pillowcase tied around her arm, he assumes she has stolen something. He thinks he might get a reward if he catches her and returns it, so he grabs her as she runs by. The two teenagers throw punches and insults at each other. When Nector pins Marie underneath him, helped by the weight of the dead geese tied to his wrists, the encounter turns sexual, and they have intercourse, out in the open. Marie says that she hopes the nuns saw it, which shocks Nector. He feels shame, but when he claims that Marie made him do it, she laughs. When Marie shakes her hand, the cloth drops away and Nector sees the ugly, unwashed wound on her hand. It makes him think of times he’s had to kill injured animals in the woods, and he realizes how strong she was not to cry as they fought, how much her hand must have hurt as they tussled. Nector realizes that he wants Marie.

Analysis: Wild Geese

Erdrich begins to weave the tales together with characters, settings, and themes. “Wild Geese” parallels “The World’s Greatest Fisherman” because the two narrators in 1934 grow up to become Grandpa and Grandma Kashpaw in the first story of the novel. Sacred Heart Convent and the nuns who live there play major roles in this story and in “Saint Marie,” although their role is in the distance here. Both stories are narrated using the voices of first-person teenagers. Nector is Chippewa and Marie is from a poor white family, but they are the same age.

The image of two wild geese is both literal and figurative. Nector and his brother, Eli, have killed two wild geese and will split the money. Nector uses his money in town and likes to “spark the girls.” He is also saving to buy his girlfriend, Lulu, a wedding ring, but this plan is overturned when he meets Marie. The literal geese are part of Nector and Marie’s physical tussle, and the geese bang against Marie when Nector grabs her and the weight of the geese helps pin her down when he is on top of her. Figuratively, the two teenagers are the wild geese. They act impulsively and brazenly as they make love and they both have lived wild lives, Marie in a family of “horse-thieving drunks,” and Nector in the woods. The geese will return prominently in “Love Medicine,” when Lipsha misses while trying to shoot geese, a miss that initiates the tragic death of Nector Kashpaw. Lipsha chooses geese because they mate for life, which is also true for Nector and Marie, despite many obstacles in their relationship.

Erdrich uses natural imagery to describe the characters, especially Marie. She is “planted solid as a tree” and is “pale as birch.” Her eyes are compared to feral animal eyes and her voice to a crow. Nector speaks wildly but reverently treats the suffering birds in the woods as if they are saints, a direct reference to “Saint Marie.” Although their encounter seems driven by primal lust, Erdrich suggests that a deeper, more archetypal love is planted here. Their coupling represents the natural order of the wild world, momentary yet inevitable. It also begins with “gentle reverence” as Nector holds Marie’s injured hand at the story’s end. Careful readers already know that these two characters will have long lives and children together, but they began as two wild teenagers.

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