The Implicate Order of “The Antelope Wife” by Louise Erdrich

Abstract

This paper offers a reading of Louis Erdrich’s novel The Antelope Wife that draws from physicist David Bohm and his concept of the implicate order that stands for “the unbroken wholeness of the totality of existence as an undivided flowing movement without borders.” While Bohm claims that the human thought system, being conditioned to see reality as fragmented, cannot perceive this order, we suggest that, a work of art, in particular this novel, can evoke the nature of this undivided flowing movement. Flowing from creative insight, a work of art constantly transcends its place in time and space and speaks differently to different perceivers, therefore, it must not be understood as a thing or a fact, but as an unstoppable movement. In this way it meets the requirements of the ancient Native American conception of art as a repetition of Creation, and it is exactly at this point that the ancient vision of the world and the newest scientific discoveries meet.