A great preacher and poet, Edwin Hubbel, once declared that “Not in achievement, but in endurance, of the human soul, does it show its divine grandeur and its alliance with the infinite” (qtd. by Edwin Hubbel). The main character in the novel Indian Horse illustrates the theme of endurance through his actions in various environments. From the harsh Ontario bush, to St. Jerome’s, and then to a racist community that hates him, Saul, the protagonist of the book, demonstrates endurance. He approaches each environment differently, portraying the many forms suffering can take in the real world. Saul first shows endurance when living in the forest. Every time a stranger approaches his clan, Saul remembers that his “grandmother hurried [his] brother …show more content…
As Saul and his grandmother are traveling to the city, the boy sits in her arms when they take a small rest, feeling the cracked canvas of the tent wrapped around them both; as they are shivering, he senses his grandma pass away from the cold (42). Saul not only survives the inhospitable environment, but he can also handle his grandmother’s death without perishing himself. At that moment, he lost the bush, his grandma, and his entire clan. Saul not only survives, but he later makes a life for himself, despite how the environment treated him. Endurance is visible through the way Saul survives this …show more content…
At the workplace, he tries to be decent with his coworkers, but every time Saul hears his colleagues call him names, the rage inside of him grows. Saul usually does not react to the names he is called, such as “Chief,” “Tonto,” “Geronimo,” “dumb Injun,” and countless other terms, but he slowly gets more and more mad, as time goes on (180). Even though he constantly feels this fury, he still manages to hold down his tendency towards violence up to a certain point, which shows endurance. Compared to how a white man would immediately react to being verbally abused in this manner, Saul shows himself as calm and collected, which shows that he knows what he needs to do in order to survive in a community that hates him for his skin. That circles back to the theme of the book, where endurance is once again shown through Saul’s survival in a new
First, David’s mother gave him enough courage to keep hope his father would be all right after the Nazis arrested him. Because their own house was no longer safe from Nazi invasion, David’s family was staying with friends. However, Nazis burst into the house they were staying in on...
Throughout the book, Saul had a very close relationship with Father Laboutiller, he was the one who introduced Saul and the “Indian boys” to the game of hockey. In my opinion Chapter 15 was one of the most pivotal chapters in the book, it was the time Father Laboutiller and Saul first spoke with each other. Saul was sitting on the steps when Father L approached him and asked if he ever played hockey; Saul reluctantly replied saying no and that he doesn’t like games. In the book Saul says that Father Laboutiller “reached out and rubbed [his] hair […] 'we need to get you outside to watch. I guarantee you'll love it.' [he said]”(Wagamese, 57). This is a very intimate moment in the story and it not only was the start of something amazing; but, it showed a true connection and a 'meaningful' relationship. Their
Indian Horse is a novel by Richard Wagamese that beautifully explores the idea of family, and what it means to have people around you that make you feel at home. The reader is bombarded with an overwhelming sense of family and betrayal in the first few pages of the novel. As Richard Wagamese continues to write, one is able to see how safe Saul Indian Horse felt with his biological family, and he also shows how lost he felt without their love when he was taken to the Residential School. The school he was brought to was drained of all consensual love the moment it was open, and continued to fill the children with horrible feelings the entire time they were there. Indian Horse was unable to really feel as though he still had family while he was in the
Indian Horse is the perfect novel for any reader who does not see positivity in a bad situation. Richard Wagamese magnificently takes the reader into an emotional rollercoaster throughout their reading journey. Wagamese superbly proves the possibility of getting back up when knocked down, no matter how many times a person is knocked down. Despite the atrocious scenes that come up, Indian Horse is an optimistic novel because it shows that Aboriginal people have positivity and hope not only negatives, and that they are not just “lazy and hopeless”: a reader can see these positives through Saul’s hard work to improve and become the best hockey player he can be, his effort to ameliorate and return to being a “normal” member of society , and the
David was a young boy who got beaten everyday. He was very skinny, bony, and was beaten everyday. David wore threadbare clothing, he looked as if he hadn't changed or washed his clothes in months. This was the truth, his mother starved him and abused him. She never washed his clothes to embarrass him. This worked at first when people started making fun of him, but David got used to it. Bullies started beating the scrawny boy up everyday, it became a routine, but he was so frail and weak from being starved he couldn?t fight back. David looked muddled, he had a very terrible physical journey that made him mentally stronger.
Imagine being taken from your family at the age of six. Being referred to as a number rather than a name. Receiving brutal and cruel punishments for speaking the only language you were taught. How would it impact your life? Unfortunately, this is the reality for millions of Canada's Indigenous population. The nation of Canada is known to the world for being a country of peace, love and equality. Individuals originating from different nationalities immigrate to Canada, in hopes to improve their standard of living and escape the horrors of their country. Moreover, Canadians have not always been as supportive and welcoming of new ethnicities populating Canadian territory as they portray themselves to be today. Indian Horse is known to be an insightful
Encountering struggles in life defines one’s character and speaks volumes about their strength, ambition, and flexibility. Through struggles, sacrifice, and tragedy, Junior in The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, by Sherman Alexie, adapts to survive difficult situations and faces his problems head-on. As he makes life changing decisions, adapts to an unfamiliar culture, and finds himself amongst misery and heartbreak, Junior demonstrates resilience to overcome adversity and struggles.
Both Saul Indian Horse and Winston Smith use writing as a means of survival from repression. In Indian Horse, Saul uses writing as a means of seeing what made him turn away from the pain of his rape and cease repressing its happening; for him survive and live on with his life. Saul writes memoirs to find the hidden answers of why he turned to violence and alcoholism and using them to break free of the cycle. From pages two to three Saul says “They say I can’t understand where I’m going if I don’t understand where I’ve been. The answers are within me, according to them. By telling our stories, hardcore drunks like me can set ourselves free from the bottle and the life that took us there …. So Moses gave me permission to write things down. So
Louise Erdrich’s short story “American horse” is a literary piece written by an author whose works emphasize the American experience for a multitude of different people from a plethora of various ethnic backgrounds. While Erdrich utilizes a full arsenal of literary elements to better convey this particular story to the reader, perhaps the two most prominent are theme and point of view. At first glance this story seems to portray the struggle of a mother who has her son ripped from her arms by government authorities; however, if the reader simply steps back to analyze the larger picture, the theme becomes clear. It is important to understand the backgrounds of both the protagonist and antagonists when analyzing theme of this short story. Albetrine, who is the short story’s protagonist, is a Native American woman who characterizes her son Buddy as “the best thing that has ever happened to me”. The antagonist, are westerners who work on behalf of the United States Government. Given this dynamic, the stage is set for a clash between the two forces. The struggle between these two can be viewed as a microcosm for what has occurred throughout history between Native Americans and Caucasians. With all this in mind, the reader can see that the theme of this piece is the battle of Native Americans to maintain their culture and way of life as their homeland is invaded by Caucasians. In addition to the theme, Erdrich’s usage of the third person limited point of view helps the reader understand the short story from several different perspectives while allowing the story to maintain the ambiguity and mysteriousness that was felt by many Natives Americans as they endured similar struggles. These two literary elements help set an underlying atmos...
The narrator from The Toughest Indian in the World starts off my withholding his struggles with self- identification. Only to then have it exposed in a defining moment when he asks the fighter to stay the night with him. The repercussions of his overnight visit with the fighter serve as an unfamiliar course of action. Initially the narrator reserves many of his natural inclinations as a sign of struggle with his self- identity. This can be demonstrated through “I almost protested, but decided against it.”
In the penultimate chapters of Indian Horse by Richard Wagamese, Saul finally reaches his breaking point from the constant racism that he has to endure. Throughout all of these chapters, the reader witnesses Saul’s drastic transformation. After being scouted to play hockey professionally, Saul moves to Toronto and settles in with a new foster family. However, as he begins to settle in with his new team, Saul begins to attract a lot of media attention, as reporters flock to report on the only Indian player on the team, whom they consider to be an outlier. No matter how Saul played, the media would always find a way to stereotype him, even if he had performed well.
Rebuilding Identity and Community Through Sports in Indian Horse The story Indian Horse by Richard Wagamese is a story about a boy named Saul, who shares his horrific experiences as a young indigenous boy in Canada. The story explores the extreme abuse and cultural extinction that Saul underwent while at residential schools. A thematic concept that Wagamese touches on, using sports to overcome trauma and rebuild identity. Saul used ice hockey as a way to help overcome his trauma with residential schools and rebuild his own identity.
When talking about such experiences, Saul says “There are things I found out that I never told anyone.” (Wagamese 208). He then goes on to ask both Fred and Martha about the assault that they had gone through, “Were you.? I asked, the words dwindling off into space. I looked at him and he kept his head down, clasping his hands together” (Wagamese 209).
Every person changes with the issues they experience, and there is no exception with Saul Indian Horse. A person’s identity is defined by everything that they have experienced, and one experience can change a person a lot. Throughout the story, Saul faces many problems, which change him into a different person every time. From when he was a kid in the bush, to when he was an adult living alone in his truck, Saul has changed for the better, and the worse, throughout the story. At the start of the story, Saul is a normal kid who grew up in an Indigenous family.
Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice illuminates a social courtship between the proud Mister Fitzwilliam Darcy and the shrewd, unconventional Miss Elizabeth Bennet. Elizabeth is proud of her own identity. She astutely justifies herself as “a gentleman’s daughter” (Austen 337) in her confrontation with the prejudiced and class-conscious Lady Catherine de Bourgh. Mister Fitzwilliam Darcy, who shares Elizabeth’s sharp tongue, comes from a family of high social status; his privileged upbringing instilled in him “pride and conceit” (Austen 349) that blinds him from acknowledging the similarity and equality between him and Elizabeth. Upon first proposing to Elizabeth, he does not realize that he is not raising her social status by marrying her. They are of equal authority in marriage; their similar personalities makes them all the more equal and complementary to each other. Thus, their marriage, following a second, sincerely worded proposal, signifies Darcy’s recognition of Elizabeth’s worth, and through his recognition, Austen argues for the fundamental equality between husband and wife.