The Bingo Palace 409of commercialism are emphasized. Money turns
them against tradition and family, greed leaves them
powerless to their own will, and material objects
separate them from inner spirituality. They are
each left wanting more when the money is gone.
Not permanent but transitory, money is only a tem-
porary “insulation” from true connection to the self,
others, and land. Though Lyman instructs Lipsha to
“go after something real,” neither escapes money’s
powerful sway.
The emphasis on money and exchange also
has a disturbing effect on their relationships with
others, specifically with Shawnee Ray Toose, their
joint love interest. Rather than treating her as a
complex individual with feelings, both Lyman and
Lipsha commodify her as a possession to be had.
Shawnee is a desired object of belonging, like the
bingo van or dollar bills. Erdrich potently describes
their commodification of Shawnee through their
proposed deal and its execution: Lipsha sug-
gests that he will give his uncle Nector’s tribal
pipe if Lyman turns away from Shawnee. Sadly,
Shawnee’s objectification continues throughout
the novel. Lipsha elevates her to a cherished prize,
and Lyman grooms her to be his future casino
manager. Others see Shawnee merely as a vessel,
as to be filled with their own vision of her. Ironi-
cally, she appreciates money for what it is worth as
a means to an end: She seeks money to start her
own design business or relocate with her son, Red-
ford, off the reservation. Her fiscal acuity surpasses
those around her.
Like Shawnee, the mysterious Fleur Pillager
also understands the truth of money. Her repeated
refrain in Lipsha’s mind that Matchimanito Lake,
the proposed site of the new casino, is “not real
estate” reminds his conscience that some things
should be sacred from commercialization. While
he and Lyman are constantly reminded of money’s
impermanence, Fleur, with her intense spirituality,
illustrates that land lasts. Money separates modern
people from the things that traditional land con-
nects them to: family, history, and spirituality. Any
balance between the traditional and the modern is
necessarily difficult when money is involved.
Erica D. Galioto
Fate in The Bingo Palace
The Bingo Palace explores the presence of fate, design,
and luck in everyday life. While fate—attributing
events to outside forces—and design—manipulating
events through personal will—can easily be used to
explain much of the novel’s action, it is luck, happen-
ing by chance, that is most emphasized. Appearing
in the titles of nine chapters, “luck” is consistently
believed to determine certain events. Similar to
fate, luck finds its source outside people; however,
it is attributed to everyday occurrences, while fate is
decidedly more otherworldly. In both cases, fate and
luck allow their believers to deny personal responsi-
bility for their actions, and it is this philosophy that
pervades The Bingo Palace.
The Bingo Palace itself symbolizes belief in luck
on the Turtle Mountain Chippewa Reservation. The
local gambling spot, which looks more like a circus
tent, depends on people who place their fate in these
outside sources. Whether the reservation residents
play the daily bingo games, pull the levers of the slot
machines, or drink to inebriation, they willingly give
over their lives to something outside themselves—
an announcer, a machine, or a bottle. Whether they
call it everyday luck or spiritual fate, it is the same: a
constructed explanation of life’s events.
“Lipsha’s Luck” stands as the centerpiece chapter
that echoes throughout the other characters’ chap-
ters. Lipsha returns to the reservation a thoroughly
modern young man in dress, speech, and attitude and
is stunned when Marie Kashpaw, his foster grand-
mother, presents him with Nector’s pipe housed in
a decorative bag. During this exchange, both Lipsha
and Marie recede to the past and see Nector with
his cherished object, hear his long prayers, and recall
his requested favors. Speechless, Lipsha holds the
sacred pipe and reconnects with both his recent and
ancestral past. That night, buoyed with courage, he
attempts to take Shawnee Ray Toose, mother of his
uncle’s son, for Chinese food in Canada, but they
never make it across the border. They are stopped
by an eager agent who searches their vehicle and
mistakes Nector’s tribal pipe and natural seed for
marijuana and its smoking implement. The agent
opens the ornate bag and performs an action only
meant for sacred ritual: he joins the bowl of the
pipe to the narrow, carved stem. As the only “non-