The Resistance of Catharine Le Loup Cait Mazzarella College

As depicted in D'Arcy McNickle's The Surrounded, Catharine Le Loup is a Salish woman who resists and struggles within the European invasion on her life and her Salish culture. Salish people are from the Pacific Northwest and in the book the Salish characters live in Montana on the fictionalized Flathead Reservation. In this novel the reader witnesses this powerful woman through a male gaze, the main character Archidle Leon, her son. Archidle may not clearly define his mother or her individuality or give examples of how Salish women are respected or treated in their culture, but we get to know her through his story. The reader is given room to view her outside of his gaze if they can see her beyond Archidle’s perceptions and deep into her experiences as her own person. Catharine is up against the most dominating and cruel forces she could ever encounter and in her strength, the betrayals she has endured and her independence she pushes back with a stronger fierceness.

Catharine Wolf, later to be baptized and known as Catharine Le Loup, is the first female character the reader is introduced to. She is the mother of the Archidle and is met after he comes home after a long journey from Portland, Oregon. She is always very excited to...