Land, identity and community in Louise Erdrich's Love Medicine and Four Souls

This dissertation deals with Erdrich?s two novels, Love Medicine and Four Souls, since in both novels community becomes the binding factor that holds characters together and gives them the power to heal and survive. Community is so crucial that leaving family and community destroys the female protagonists of both novels. Whoever breaks bonds with the community and family by leaving the land, encounters spiritual, cultural and personal decimation. Leaving home and land transforms characters into different personalities.