"They don't fix them in those places," Mom said; " They give them drugs." Why is this quote from The Red Convertible by Louise Erdrich important to...

The quote, "They don't fix them in those places," Mom
said; "They give them drugs" can have several different
meanings.

This quote deals with the condition of her son
Henry who left for the war and came back a changed man.  They are part of a Native
American reservation, and as those present speak of what can be done to help Henry, his
mom is clear about the problem. Moses Pillager cannot be trusted because he had courted
her long ago and is jealous of her husbands, so he might try to hurt Henry out of
revenge. There are no Indian doctors on the reservation, and Henry's mom fears that if
they take him to the hospital, he won't be allowed to come home. "They don't fix them in
those places," Mom said; "They give them drugs."

There are
several ways to look at this passage for its
significance.

The first may be Henry's mom's distrust of
the treatment her son would get at a "white" hospital. It would seem she fears that they
would try to put a "band aid" on what troubles him by giving him drugs, but not finding
the root of the problem. In this way, he would be dependent on a substance, but have no
chance to truly get well: 'without knowing the cause of a problem, how can you fix it?'
she might be saying.

The quote might also reflect that she
has no faith in hospitals at all. She refers to "those places" which might lump all
hospitals together. This could be a cultural reflection as to the ineffectiveness of
anything but "old medicine," passed down through the generations of her
people.

A third possibility is that she may have a sense
that her son cannot be helped under any circumstances. The world of
the Native American has changed to something unrecognizable. Gone are the days of
raising strong warriors to live off of the land, ride free on prairies that belong to no
one in particular, and find a sense of positive self-worth, pride and accomplishment in
carving out one's life with the doing of everyday things in the old ways. Here her son
is sent to a foreign war, 'foreign' in every sense of the world,
and perhaps she dismisses the treatment already knowing that her son is lost, and
nothing any doctor can do will fix him.