HAUNTED IDENTITIES: HISTORICAL TRAUMA AND COLLECTIVE GRIEF IN ERDRICH’S THE SENTENCE

Abstract

Erdrich’s The Sentence (2021) situates personal identity within the weight of historical grief, exploring how Indigenous communities navigate trauma that reverberates across generations. Centered on Tookie, an Ojibwe woman haunted by both her past incarceration and the ghost of Flora, a white customer fascinated by Indigeneity, the novel dramatizes the persistence of colonial wounds alongside contemporary crises such as the COVID-19 pandemic and the murder of George Floyd. This article examines how Erdrich depicts identity as inseparable from collective grief, drawing on Volkan’s concepts of large-group identity and chosen trauma alongside Brave Heart’s theory of historical trauma. Volkan’s framework highlights how unresolved traumas become embedded in group identity, resurfacing in moments of crisis, while Brave Heart’s work underscores how Indigenous communities inherit grief rooted in colonization, forced assimilation, and systemic violence. Reading the novel through these lenses reveals Flora’s haunting as a manifestation of colonial appropriation and Tookie’s survival as emblematic of intergenerational negotiation with trauma. The bookstore, where Indigenous stories circulate, becomes a space of resilience, resisting erasure and transforming grief into memory and survival. Ultimately, The Sentence insists that historical grief is not merely a burden but a constitutive force of identity—painful, haunting, yet also capable of sustaining community and ethical witness.