The Round House: Jurisdiction(读书

Louise Erdrich’s book The Round House is the wake up call for the USA law system need to be fixed; she uses the story to try to tell the readers the serious problems of the law system. Most rapes and violent assaults in the Indian reservation went unpunished. All the rape victims confess a feeling of helplessness in the Indian reservation. the white men rape Indian women in the Indian reservation land. It is so difficult to understand why the law cannot bring criminals to justice.Because the law hardly falls within the area under the Indian reservation law jurisdiction, it makes the main character Joe a thirteen-year-old boy Anger at injustice, which is why he find his own way to help his mother, to kill the badman Lark. Joe’s mother is the symbol of the Indian women victim of the violent unprotection by the law systems. According to Louise Erdrich’s book:

"Through the wood? I don’t know, what about the ground- gravel? brush? Was there a barbed-wire fence? My mother screamed in a hoarse voice until her lungs emptied and there was silence. Three classes of land meet there, my father said. His voice pulled tight with fear. Tribal trust, state, and fee. That’s why I’m asking. Get out of the courtroom, get damn hell out, my mother said. I don’t know." (p.160)

From this quotation, we can see the tribal land, state, and fee in the which place the law is difference. As we know Joe’s father is the judge for Indian reservation, of course he knows all the laws, that’s why he is so worried his wife about the area been rape is unprotected by the law. The place could not bring bad people to justice, the law supposed to bring the evil deed to justice. But this story Louise Erdrich use the land and place to tell us the problem of the tribal land laws for many years. For this reason, this story presented to us the law system has be change. The Indian reservation law had no jurisdiction over the white men. It means the Indian reservation does not has power to lock Lark in the jail. The poor legal system, which is The United States’federal laws for the tribal lands could not to protect the women citizens. The poor Indian reservation laws totally failed; women could not be depending on the legal system. This story makes me confuse about the USA law system, why for the many years the government still not fix the law. From the book the writer hope this story could make the reader deeply think, it to help the legal law system make some change.

Louise Erdrich