Fleur

Female Power is expressed in “Fleur” through three characters: Fritzie, Fleur, and Pauline. Each has their own ways of dealing with the men that dominate Kozka’s Meats. Fritzie’s influence as a wife softens Pete and the men around him. For example, Pete does not usually participate in the card games (although the others do coax him from time to time), and he does not participate in any hostility toward either Fleur or Pauline. His own personality is itself softening, as “only Pete’s presence” was able to keep “Lily at bay” and prevent him from hurting Fleur (183). Fritzie also wields some power over Pete. She “did not tolerate him talking behind her back” and only allowed him to read the New Testament” (180). Fritzie is also the only one besides Pauline who knows where Fleur lives. Fritzie’s identity as a white woman contrasts Fleur and Pauline’s presence in the story, as Fritzie is neither brutalized nor ignored.

The most significant embodiments of female power are shown in Fleur and Pauline. Fleur’s power is perceived by the Kozka’s men as a threat to their masculinity; she can “lift a haunch or carry a pole of sausages without stumbling” (179). Beyond that physical power, she also has a physical beauty that captivates the men with her “wide and flat” cheeks and “fishlike, slippery, narrow” hips (180). The simultaneous attraction and emasculation felt by the men of Kozka’s in reaction to Fleur’s power is further complicated by Fleur’s skill at cards, an arena in which Fleur more overtly dominates them, even humiliating them by winning their paychecks when the men attempt to trick her. Fleur’s modest initial winnings enrage Lily, who cannot understand why Fleur would cheat for low stakes, unable to conceive of power by degrees and not just as total domination. Erdrich also frames Fleur’s power in supernatural terms. Just as the magic Fleur displays at Lake Turcot scares the men there (men who die mysterious deaths as a result of her interactions with them), Fleur causes the mysterious deaths of the men at Kozka’s after they attempt to dominate her. Erdrich suggests that Fleur’s power is both deadly to others and dangerous to herself, as it enables Fleur to survive and take vengeance, yet also positions Fleur as a noticeable threat to others.  

Pauline offers a different example of feminine power. She is meek, a “skinny girl” who does not assert herself, and nothing like Fleur physically. Where Fleur wears tight clothes that show off her muscles, Pauline’s “dress [hangs] loose” and covers her “already curved” back; her face is “hardened” from caring for her mother while she died (181). However, Pauline’s lack of beauty allows her the power of invisibility. Because of it, she “[knows] everything, what the men said when no one was around, and what they did to Fleur” (179). Where Fleur’s power is direct and confrontational, Pauline’s power is indirect and observational. Ultimately, it is Pauline who enacts revenge on the men, able to lock them in the locker unnoticed, even as she attributes her act to a wind which “spoke plain so [she] understood” that she had to “slam down the great iron bar” and lock them in (187). Pauline’s power stays a secret, as even the men do not know who dooms them. Pauline also demonstrates the final act of power in the story by telling the world what the men did and who Fleur is.

“Fleur” suggests that there is not one form of ideal female power; rather, various types can complement each other and help women gain agency in a male-dominated world.