Page 19 - GALIET BEING´S FLEUR: Eldrich IV

insistence by Pauline, she “refuses to talk to Pauline about the Puyats or about the winter...” (Erdrich 15). As mentioned earlier, Fleur fears that she will be “staked” with rational pseudo-realities or pseudo-identities and thus is constantly vanishing into orgasms of air. As a result, Nanapush and Fleur represent discourse versus intercourse. Reason versus Passion. Langue versus Tongue.
Likewise, Pauline’s copious linguistic “drafts” of Fleur, on the other hand, are deceiving, primarily, because she is infected with jealous innuendos as she struggles with her dysfunctional sexuality, insecurity and mixed-blood identity and, secondarily, because she is possessed with fiction. Pauline tells us how Fleur, on “the very first time she drowned in the cold and glassy waters of Matchimanito...” (Erdrich 10) is rescued by two men. Thereafter, Pauline depicts Fleur as an indulgent “femme fatale,” attracting and casting men who tragically “disappear and lose themselves” (Erdrich 10 and 11) 3⁄4 with the exception of Eli, her companion 3⁄4 and further implicates Fleur with Misshepeshu:
“Men stayed clear of Fleur ... after the second drowning... for it was clear that Misshepeshu, the water man, the monster wanted her for himself. He’s a devil ... love hungry with desire and maddened for the touch of young girls ... our mothers warn us that we’ll think he is handsome ... he appears with green eyes ..., a mouth tender as a child’s, but if you fall into his arms, he sprouts horns, fangs, claws, fins... he transforms into a lion, a worm or a familiar man... made of gold ... made of beach moss. A thing of dead by drowning” (Erdrich 11)
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