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. The crowds were not any better in the big cities, with rowdy benches hurling insults and garbage into the rink. …show more content…
When his coach started benching him as he was getting into frequent fights with the opposing team, Saul retorts that he’s just “giving them what they want” (Wagamese 165). Finding it ever more difficult to control his anger, Saul found himself benched for even longer, until he was finally kicked out of the team altogether. This climactic end to Saul’s hockey career kickstarts a series of events where he takes a job at a lumber mill in order to get away from all the racism. Even though the natural outdoors has kept him calm, he continues to experience constant racist jeers from his co-workers. This escalates into a fight, where Saul brutally knocks out a man named Jorgenson. Saul later recounts that his co-workers “never bothered him again” (Wagamese
The issue of racism against the black race in Harper Lee’s, To Kill a Mockingbird, and the issue of prejudice of the Native American race in Richard Wagamese’s, Indian Horse, reveal the hardships that these two races endure. It also highlights how these races, as a whole, attempt to push through these hardships, but only one race is headed towards success. The effects of such hardships differ between the two races. Firstly, in To Kill a Mockingbird, Tom Robinson is accused of rape by the daughter of Bob Ewell, who is known as the town drunk. This novel takes place after the Great Depression, and at this time it would be considered unheard-of to pronounce a black person innocent in a trial against a white man. Atticus Finch
In a generation focused on social justice and the elimination of prejudice from our society, there is still a use of offensive language and terminology in the area of professional sports. In “The Indian Wars” by S. L. Price, Price attempts to make the reader aware of sports teams that use derogatory terms as their team name and their mascot. He does this by highlighting football, and trying to determine whether Native-Americans are offended by team names in sports, or more specifically, the Redskins. Price’s essay is ineffective because although he raises good points, he doesn’t help the reader to form an opinion by adding historical context to the derogatory names used. He also uses inaccurate poll results to make assumptions about the feelings
Saul Indian Horse is an Ojibway child who grew up in a land which offered little contact with anyone belonging to a different kind of society until he was forced to attend a residential school in which children were being stripped away of their culture with the scope of assimilating them into a more “civilized” community. Saul’s childhood in the school, greatly pervaded by psychological abuse and emotional oppression, was positively upset once one of the priests, Father Leboutillier, introduced him to the world of hockey, which soon become his sole means of inclusion and identification, mental well-being and acknowledged self-worth in his life. It is though universally acknowledged how, for every medal, there are always two inevitably opposite
The novel “Indian Horse” by Richard Wagamese demonstrates the many conflicts that indigenous people encounter on a daily basis. This includes things such as, the dangers they face and how they feel the need to flee to nature, where they feel the most safe. Another major issue they face is being stripped of their culture, and forcibly made to believe their culture is wrong and they are less of a human for being brought up that way, it makes them feel unworthy. Finally, when one is being criticised for a hobby they enjoy due to their indigenous upbringing, they make himself lose interest and stop the hobby as it makes them different and provokes torment. People who are trying
When individuals face obstacles in life, there is often two ways to respond to those hardships: some people choose to escape from the reality and live in an illusive world. Others choose to fight against the adversities and find a solution to solve the problems. These two ways may lead the individuals to a whole new perception. Those people who decide to escape may find themselves trapped into a worse or even disastrous situation and eventually lose all of their perceptions and hops to the world, and those who choose to fight against the obstacles may find themselves a good solution to the tragic world and turn their hopelessness into hopes. Margaret Laurence in her short story Horses of the Night discusses the idea of how individual’s responses
Terrence and Jordin Tootoo grew up in Rankin Inlet, Nunavut, in Canada’s arctic region. They were like other Inuit children in Rankin Inlet in many respects: They were brought up to respect the customs of their people and they enjoyed the resources the land around them provided- they learned to hunt and fish for food like the others. However, the brothers were also different from their peers in one main respect- they were blessed with a love for the game of hockey, and also with extraordinary amounts of talent which would enable them to leave their native community to pursue the dream of professional hockey. While the brothers were growing up they were inseparable; however, after leaving Rankin Inlet to pursue the professional game their respective careers took strikingly different paths. Jordin’s journey took him to the top- he was drafted into the National Hockey League and signed a lucrative contract with the Nashville Predators. However, Terrence’s road to the professional ranks was filled with hardship and tragedy, ultimately resulting in his suicide in August of 2002. The contrasting paths taken by the brothers is an illustration of how professional sporting careers can have varying impacts on the lives of Native American and Canadian athletes and their communities. In the following few paragraphs I will outline the history of Native Americans and Canadians in sports. I will examine how successful Native athletes are able to help their communities, both financially and by serving as role models for younger Natives. Also, I will argue that their still exist barriers and challenges to Native athletes that do not confront other athletes. For example, Native athletes are often placed under increased scrutiny because of their positions as role models. I will conclude by commenting on how Native athletes fit into pro sports today, and speculate on what can be done to increase the amount of success enjoyed by Natives.
On the inside front cover of a used copy of Cormac McCarthy’s 1992 novel All the Pretty Horses lies a note, presumably written by someone who had gifted the novel to someone else. The note reads: “In my opinion, the best Western from the best Western author. Great spiritual ruminations.” Upon reading the line ‘the best Western from the best Western author,’ images of gruff and mysterious cowboys catching bandits and riding off into the sunset immediately fills one's head. However, one will almost certainly be surprised to find that All the Pretty Horses contained very little of what most would assume makes a Western great.
When we have to face challenges, people deal with those in different ways. Sometimes it is easy to just ignore these difficulties. However, to overcome an obstacle, we have to face and deal with it. In this book, “Indian Horse” by an Ojibway writer, Richard Wagamese presents this beautiful novel to the reader concerning a tragic life of a boy, Saul Indian Horse. The protagonist, hero of this novel was in a period and a place where his native sources were not acknowledged in the world. He experienced many catastrophes just to see how the society treats him without the help of anybody. By discovering Saul losing the ability to trust and being abandoned by his family members, causing himself harm and harden himself. Also, this affects the growth
“All the Pretty Horses”, a novel written by Cormac McCarthy tells the tale about a man and his friend travelling the plains of Mexico after leaving their homes in Texas. As the novel’s name alludes to, horses are a central theme in the story as they represent manhood and freedom when John Grady, the protagonist, and his friend Rawlins get thrown in jail. McCarthy’s novel became critically-acclaimed which gained him more recognition, as well as a movie adaptation directed by Billy Bob Thornton. Even though Thornton’s adaption has the basics of the novel’s story it does not appropriately grasps its depth. While Thornton’s version stays faithful to the dialogue from the book’s included scenes it does fall short by having an erratic pace, having
In the story “The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven” there is Native American stereotyping. The narrator of the story represents a Native American man who deals with stereotypes in his everyday life. He can choose to either live those stereotypes or go against them. There were occasions when his race made people suspicious of his actions.
Have you ever felt trapped in that box that you call life, with that feeling like you can’t breathe? Where it’s dark, constant, and feels never ending or worse feels like you’ll never get out? The claustrophobia about life that you don’t realize until you are too trapped underneath the daily grind is more common that some may think. I’ve felt it myself a time or two and I’m just starting out in life. I’ve always had goals set since I was a little girl, but over time things change and it starts getting stressful. I felt ready to crumble under all the pressure, that is until my mom introduced me to the horse world. I’ve always been fascinated before, but actually owning one is a totally different experience than just meeting
The Arabian or Arab horse is a breed of horse that originated on the Arabian Peninsula. With a distinctive head shape and high tail carriage, the Arabian is one of the most easily recognizable horse breeds in the world. It is also one of the oldest breeds, with archaeological evidence of horses in the Middle East that resemble modern Arabians dating back 4,500 years. Throughout history, Arabian horses have spread around the world by both war and trade, used to improve other breeds by adding speed, refinement, endurance, and strong bone. Today, Arabian bloodlines are found in almost every modern breed of riding horse.
God put many creatures on this earth one including horses. I actually have a horse, well actually he’s my grandpa’s but I ride him, also his name is Navajo. He’s a pinto-quarter horse. He’s not all the way broke in, meaning you can ride him, but he still bucks and kicks. He’s very gentle with children. All in all I really enjoy horses especially caring for them, I like tacking up and going for a ride, horses are really fun to feed, and to design their stalls.
A horse is a horse of course of course. Right? Well, not exactly. There are more breeds of horses than Carter has liver pills. We're just going to touch on a few examples here, otherwise we're going to need a book about 2000 pages long.
Early horses evolved from tiny, four-toed, forest dwellers that were possibly no more than a foot tall roaming through the forests of North America. For more than half of their history horses remained as small forest browsers. Changes in climate conditions permitted grasslands to grow and from these changes many new species of horses evolved as well as the human animal relationship. All mammals including horses at one point in time shared a common feature and that was five toes. “Over millions of years, many horse species lost most of their side toes.