James Welch's "Winter in Blood"

I’ve read James Welch’s novel “Winter in Blood” a while back. Thinking back to it now, I can draw connections between this book and the discussions we had earlier in class about internal colonialism and historical trauma. Although this is a fictional book, with the main character being the nameless narrator; I believe that this book is very applicable here because the narrator is the author James Welch himself. James Welch attended schools on the Blackfeet and Fort Belknap reservations in Montana, which is very similar to articles we read in the beginning of the class about colonialism and historical trauma.

Below is a brief description of the story:

James Welch’s “Winter in the Blood” is a story about an unnamed Native American narrator, and the main character in the story, which lives on the Indian reservation in Montana with his mother, stepfather and grandmother. The story goes through what can only be described as a narrator’s meaningless existence. It seems that way at first, due to the fact that the main character of the story is a wanderer, who lives with his mother on a ranch, unmarried, cannot hold down a job, and for the most part is a drunk. He cannot and will not connect with anyone emotionally, including his family. At the start of the novel, I pictured the narrator as a complete and total bum, a waste, an absolute nothing. However, as the story progresses, we begin to see that although he does fit all of these descriptions, there is a lot more to him that meets the naked eye, or in this case a lot more than our first impression of him indicates in the novel. The book itself represents a lot more, thanks to many subtle themes that are introduced and reoccur throughout the book.

One of the main themes in the novel is the idea of distance. The narrator distances himself emotionally from almost all the other characters in this book. This distance is represented by emotional indifference toward his mother, his stepfather, his grandmother and even his girlfriend. All the people around him that should matter, and should be cared for, are completely unimportant to him as he feels nothing for them.

The distance is also an issue when it comes to the relationship that the narrator has with his father First Raise and an older brother Mose. This might be a little bit of a stretch, but the distance here is physical because both his father and his brother are dead.

Due to the loss of the only two people that he ever cared for, his indifferent emotional state, inability to connect with people on any level, lack of self-identity, purpose and direction, the constant reminder of guilt, and the alienation from his “own people” – the distance just keeps growing. These things are all interconnected and at time influence one another to contribute to the narrator’s “distant” state of mind.

The second important theme of distance is presented in narrator’s alienation from the Indian culture and tradition. This is due to the aforementioned fact that his mother was not a “true Indian”, and the significant issue of the mother and grandmother concealing the identity of the narrator’s biological grandfather. Later in the book we see how his “real” grandfather became the narrator’s link to his Indian heritage and culture.

During that time his father and brother were alive, and his grandmother, who now was blind and did not speak, would tell him stories of her past living among the Indian tribes. These stories could have possibly been the narrator’s connection to his Indian traditions, but were now completely lost and abandoned.

After finally meeting his “real” grandfather, the narrator begins to feel a clearer understanding of his own self, the people around him, and I believe that toward the end he finally becomes his own man. The man capable of making decisions, in touch with his Indian heritage, a man that could possible sustain a relationship, a man who could shorten the distances between himself and his surroundings.



by: Alex Mark