God And The Indian By Drew Hayden Taylor

God and the Indian is a two person play written by Drew Hayden Taylor. In this play we have a man named George that was a former priest at a residential school. We also have a lady named Johnny Indian that was a former student at said residential school. In the play Johnny accuses George of having molested her as a child. George tells Johnny that she is delusional and will not admit to his wrongdoings. The author tells the story from both George and Johnny’s sides. I think what the author is really trying to portray here is the denial of the people that worked in the name of the church at residential schools years after they had left and/or been shut down.

Johnny arrives to the church that George works at years later and enters his office. Through the course of the play Johnny and George have a discussion.

Johnny talks about being sick and how the residential school left her a mess, as it would anyone. She continues to have bad thoughts about what George had done to her and what the school had done to her. Johnny finds George because she wants him to admit what he had done and take responsibility for his actions. George refuses to admit to anything and even goes as far as to try and pin in onto another priest that had worked at the residential school during this time. Even though George desperately tries to convince Johnny she is wrong, she is not. She remembers it like it was yesterday, because things like that aren’t so easy to forget.
The ideas the author wrote about are 100% truthful and relevant to today.

He wrote about Johnny’s story, but Johnny was not the only child to have experienced sexual, emotional, and physical abuse within the residential school system. These types of things were happening in all residential schools across Canada. Johnny represents every Indigenous child to have experienced this. George represents every priest that has committed vile acts preaching it to be in the name of God. George couldn’t come to terms with what he had done, he refused to admit to it. The setting of the story was in a church. I believe that’s because you go to a church to confess your sins. Johnny came to George in a day dream to hear his confession. Johnny was never really there, it was just a figment of Georges imagination. This had clearly been something that George knew was wrong, but assumed he could bury it along with the children at the residential school. This came back to haunt George, this whole day dream was for him to realize what he had done and how it impacted Johnny. It was time for him to confess his greatest sin, but he couldn’t. Not to Johnny and not even to

god.