Page 20 - GALIET BEING´S FLEUR: Eldrich IV

Pauline’s description of Misshepeshu is crucial to understanding her anxieties towards “the other,” “water” and “men” precisely because they guise Fleur’s bewitching realm. It is not strange for Pauline to perceive Misshepeshu as an evil monster whose transformation is a “deadly thing by drowning.” It is evident that she is not only apprehensive of the Dionysian irrational self but also of life’s giving force. Although Pauline, like Fleur, is blessed (or cursed) with supernatural powers 3⁄4 when she causes Eli to be seduced by Sophie (Erdrich 83) 3⁄4 she does not seem to be omniscient. Therefore, like Nanapush, her narrative constitutes only half a rendition. It is important to elucidate that Fleur’s nature is similar to that of Mis.she.peshu’s in that both are agents of metamorphoses and dwellers of Pauline’s inconceivable “Other.” Inasmuch as we have to be weary of Pauline’s tendencies to deceive and to fictionalize, we shall bear imaginative witnesses to Fleur’s transformation into her non-human “tracks” by the placing intuitive “eye-sight”, rather than language, on her tongue:
“She (Fleur) laid the heart of an owl on her tongue so she could see at night, and went out, hunting, not even in her own body. We know for sure because the next morning, in the snow or dust, we followed the tracks of her bare feet and saw where they changed, where the claws sprang out, the pad broadened and pressed into dirt...” (Erdrich 12).
Pauline also tells us that, at night, she heard her “chuffing cough, the bear cough” (Erdrich 12), that Fleur’s “...fifth toes were missing”
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