Firekeeper's Daughter

Daunis Fontaine is the protagonist and hero of Firekeeper’s Daughter. Daunis is on the “hero’s journey” throughout the book, which is an archetypal journey where the hero learns invaluable lessons about the self and showing up in the world. Daunis’s journey is two-fold, as she is victorious in getting to the bottom of who is involved in the meth making and distribution, but also successfully learns more about her own personal growth by understanding herself and her place in the world. Daunis’s main tension at the beginning of the book is that she feels like she comes from two such disparate worlds that she can never truly belong to either. These worlds, her mother’s white side and her father’s Native side, are at odds. These conflicts also show up in Daunis’s love of science (the outside world) and traditional Native medicine (part of the world she craves, a world that simultaneously pushes her away because she’s not fully Native). It is through the confidence she gains and the difficult truths she is exposed to on her journey that Daunis can finally see and accept her whole self and trust her seemingly different parts to make the decisions that are right to help her and those she loves.