Discussion Topic

Narrator's Perception of Mother in "The Leap"

Summary:

In "The Leap" by Louise Erdrich, the narrator expresses profound love, admiration, and gratitude towards her mother, Anna. The narrator feels indebted to her mother for saving her life on three occasions: during a trapeze accident, by marrying the narrator's father, and rescuing her from a house fire. The mother's grace, courage, and moral centeredness deeply impress the narrator, who returns home to care for her blind mother, illustrating her respect and appreciation for the sacrifices made by Anna.

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In "The Leap" by Louise Erdrich, what are the narrator's feelings towards her mother?

In the short story "The Leap" by Louise Erdrich, the narrator displays great admiration and love for her mother. The story is a testimony about how much the narrator is indebted to her. She admires how even in old age and blindness her mother is so graceful and balanced. She writes,

I owe her my existence three times.

She then goes on to relate details of the times that decisions her mother made and actions that she took were so crucial to her own life.

The narrator describes the first act that influenced her life: when her mother saved herself from a terrible accident. Her mother is named Anna, and with her first husband comprises the Flying Avalons circus trapeze act. When lightning during a sudden storm strikes the tent where she and her husband are performing, her husband falls and dies. Anna, although seven months pregnant...

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with her first child, has the quick reflexes to remove her blindfold, grab a wire hot from the lightning, and slide to the ground to safety. Her unborn child dies, but Anna stays alive to later give birth to the narrator.

In the hospital, Anna meets the narrator's father, who turns out to be the doctor who nurses her back to health. The narrator says,

I owe my existence, the second time then, to the two of them and the hospital that brought them together.

During the third incident that the narrator relates her mother literally saves her life. The farmhouse that they have been living in catches fire, and the narrator is trapped alone in her room upstairs. When her parents arrive home, her mother strips down to her underwear and, using the skills that she learned as a circus acrobat, climbs a tree, leaps over to the roof of the house, rescues the narrator, and carries her to safety.

During her long convalescence in the hospital, Anna's husband-to-be teaches her to read, and she develops a love of books. It is a sign of the narrator's respect and love for her mother that when Anna becomes blind and can no longer read, the narrator returns home and stays with her so that she can read to her.

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The narrator has great feelings of tenderness, gratitude, and admiration for her aged mother, who is now blinded with cataracts. She does not treat her mother with pity or impatience, as one might an older person who is fading, but as a someone she cherishes. She says of her mother:

She has never lost her balance or bumped into a closet door left carelessly open.

This is a literal description of her mother, but also a metaphor for her moral centeredness, caring, and grace. Her mother always knew what was important and did everything to protect it.

The narrator, for example, is grateful for her mother, who was once a trapeze artist, for having the presence of mind to save her own life when her husband tumbled to his death. The two were on trapeze, ready to kiss midair, when a sudden storm hitting the tent caused his fall. She could have grabbed his ankle and gone down with him but, because she was seven months pregnant, she decided to save her baby. The baby died but the mother lived. The narrator is grateful for her mother for saving herself both because it showed she valued her unborn child, and because it meant the narrator herself could be born.

In another instance of gratitude, she is grateful that her mother married the narrator's father, a doctor who taught the mother to read. In a third incident, her mother used all her skills as a former trapeze artist to save the narrator from her room in a burning house.

The narrator loves her mother for the grace and caring with which she has lived her life. She was an artist about living life, never making a misstep.

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What are the narrator's feelings towards her mother in "The Leap"?

One of the main themes in this story is gratitude. The narrator is indebted to her mother for her life. She is grateful that her mother (Anna) has even made her life possible. This is why the narrator says "I owe her my existence three times." First, Anna saved her own life during a trapeze accident. Although Anna lost her first baby in childbirth following this accident, saving her own life allowed her to live on and eventually give birth to the narrator. The narrator is thankful a second time because Anna met her second husband during her hospital stay. 

The "leap," first of all, refers to the actual leap the narrator's mother makes in saving her life during the house fire. This is the third time the narrator owes Anna her existence. To repay her mother for giving her life and/or saving her life, the narrator returns to take care of Anna. Anna's husband (narrator's father) has died and Anna has become blind. Anna loved to read. The narrator pledges to care for her mother and to read to her as much as needed. In this statement, one can see her dedication and gratitude towards her mother. 

Since my father's recent death, there is no one to read to her, which is why I returned, in fact, from my failed life where the land is flat. I came home to read to my mother, to read out loud, read long into the dark if I must, to read all night. 

The narrator makes her own "leap" in the sense that she goes back to care for Anna. The symbolic notion of the "leap" is about creating an intimate connection. 

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In "The Leap," how does the narrator's view of her mother's rescue change?

In "The Leap," when the mother Anna Avalon comes to rescue the narrator when, as a child, she is caught upstairs in their blazing farmhouse, the narrator is at first embarrassed to see that her mother is standing in front of her in nothing but pearls and underclothing. The narrator thinks with embarrassment of the crowd of people below looking on at her mother improperly clothed. Anna had ripped off her dress because her husband and the narrator's father, in his anguish and distress, couldn't make his fingers work to unzip it.

Anna, half unclothed as she was, instructed the fire fighters to place the broken ladder against a tree trunk growing near the house. Stunned, the firefighters did as she asked then they and all the crowd watched as Anna climbed the tree, slid out to the furthest length of a diminishing branch and jumped to the roof, catching herself by her heels from the roof gutter in a position just above the narrator's bedroom window. This act was an echo of Anna's earlier life as a trapeze artist, a life that ended tragically with the death of her husband and their unborn child, neither of whom survived the tragedy.

Once Anna and the narrator jumped out the window--Anna with her toes pointed--the narrator had time, as her mother always said was the case, to think about many things. The final thing she thought as she and her mother sailed down toward the fire fighter's net was to curl her hands over her mother's while listening to her heart beat and nuzzling against her stomach as her mother held her tightly and safely in their joint fall. the narrator's attitude changed in that protracted instant from one of embarrassment to one of appreciation, gratitude, profound unity and deep love.

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What are the narrator's feelings towards her mother in "The Leap"?

The narrator in Louise Erdrich's story "The Leap" feels tremendous love, respect, and admiration for her mother. This shows clearly many times as she relates the events, trials, struggles, and victories of her mother's unique life.

The narrator's admiration for her mother is first revealed when she speaks of how her now-blind mother Anna walks through the house without ever knocking anything over or losing her balance. Her senses are fine-tuned, and the narrator thinks that this "catlike precision" probably comes from the days when her mother was one half of the Flying Avalons circus act. The narrator then speaks of the tragedy that took the life of her mother's first husband. A storm blew the circus tent down, killing him. The narrator marvels how in saving herself, she saved her future children as well, even though the child she carried at the time was born dead.

The narrator most certainly respects her mother's reaction to the tragedy. It could have crushed her spirit, but she did not let it. Anna knew her circus career was over because of her injuries. Her husband was dead. Yet she carried on. She recovered. She found new companionship and eventually love in the doctor who treated her arm (and later became her new husband and the narrator's father). Anna even developed a new passion. She learned to read, and she loved it.

The narrator's love for her mother is especially revealed in her story of how her mother so courageously saved her from their burning house. Her parents had been away that evening, and when they got home, they found the house in flames and their seven-year-old daughter trapped in an upstairs bedroom. Anna never hesitated. She stripped to her underwear, climbed a tree, and leaped out so that she was hanging by her heels from the gutter. The narrator says that her mother remained completely calm as her daughter opened the window. She swung in, held the girl close to her, and jumped directly into the firefighters' net. Her daughter didn't even have time to become scared in Anna's comforting arms. Indeed, the narrator realizes that she owes her life to her mother in more ways than one, and she admires, respects, and loves this woman who risked everything for her. That is why she has moved home to care for her now.

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How is the mother perceived by the narrator in "The Leap"?

It is with a reverential and admiring tone that the narrator relates the tale of her three rescues from death afforded her by her mother. Indeed, her mother has been her savior on three occasions in her life and the narrator feels both pride, admiration, respect, gratitude, and love for these actions. 

It is clear that the narrator admires the mother's quick thinking and courage: "my mother lives comfortably in extreme elements." Certainly, she is grateful as she realizes that she owes her very existence to her mother, who lived to later give birth to her after marrying the physician who rehabilitates her physically and spiritually while she lies in the hospital after the circus accident. And, she is in awe of the woman who risked "life and limb" a second time in order to save the narrator from the raging fire when no one else could. Bravely climbing a tree, springing from a branch, and jumping two stories with her child in her arms, Anna displays yet again her fortitude and expertise, qualities of which the daughter is so proud. For, as she gazes at the statue that stands over her mother's grave, it seems to the narrator that "[T]he lamb looms larger as the years pass...the statue is growing more sharply etched, as if...it is hardening on the hillside with each snowfall, perfecting itself. 

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What words describe the narrator's feelings toward her mother in "The Leap"?

Indirect characterisation is mainly used in this excellent story to explore the relationship between the mother and the narrator, her daughter. Note the way in which the admiration of the daughter is evident from the very first paragraph, as the narrator describes her mother's blindness but also how well she manages:

She has never upset an object or as much as brushed a magazine on to the floor. She has never lost her balance or bumped into a closet door left carelessly open.

The respect she has for her mother is evident through this comment. However, the most revealing comment from my point of view comes at the very end, when the love, closeness and intimacy the two share is completely evident:

I slowly wondered what would happen if we missed the circle or bounced out of it. Then I wrapped my hands around my mother's hands. I felt the brush of her lips and heard the beat of her heart in my ears, loud as thunder, long as the roll of drums.

Even when they were falling together from the house, the narrator does not spend much time wondering about fear, but rather the closeness she shares with her mother is an antitode to fear and takes it away. The "brush of her lips" is a moving, physical expression of love, comfort and concern, as the "roll of drums" to which the mother's heart is compared to is an allusion to her days working as a trapeeze artist. The relationship between these two characters is therefore incredibly close and intimate.

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