Sometimes, what makes us exceptional or great also makes us the worst possible version of ourselves. In Wagamese’s Indian Horse, Saul is an exceptional hockey player, he aspires to become a great success. However, his incredible skill leads him to unwanted attention that ultimately has him suffering. This is the beginning of his downfall as a character. To begin with, while pursuing his hockey career, he faces abuse and trauma around every corner. Next, his gateway into the sport also happens to stem directly from abuse inflicted on him by another individual. These factors combined cause Saul to become self-inflicted with pain and hatred towards himself and others. Subsequently, Saul finds himself in agonizing pain while in pursuit of his goal …show more content…
First, Saul is introduced to hockey at a young age, but his introduction to the sport is closely connected to multiple forms of abuse. In specific, Father Leboutillier, a teacher and a priest at St. Jerome's Residential School, is exploiting Saul for his own sickening pleasure. Throughout the novel the reader is continuously misled, thinking that Father Leboutillier has moral intentions and would actually like to help the students who are being tormented. However, by the end of the novel it is obvious that all he wants is to keep the students close to him so that he may take advantage of them in a horrific way. In chapter 52, after Saul returns to visit his previous guardians, Fred and Martha Kelly, who both attended the same school, they all sit down and begin to share their experiences at the school. 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). It can be inferred that
In “The Classic Fairy Tales” by Maria Tator and “Mad Shadows” by Marie-Claire Blais, both texts deal with the idea that suffering and understanding are deeply connected. The authors aim to prove that suffering and understanding go hand in hand in order for change to occur. In “The Classic Fairy Tales”, Beauty and the beast, Snow White and Cinderella, will explore the relation between understanding suffering via transformation, desire, and physical injuries, when compared and contrasted with Mad Shadows.
In Night, he informs his reader of many examples on how a myriad of good people turn into brutes. They see horrific actions, therefore, they cannot help by becoming a brute. They experience their innocent family members being burned alive, innocent people dieing from starvation due to a minuscule proportion of food, and innocent people going to take a shower and not coming out because truly, it is a gas chamber and all f...
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
Stories are much more than just ink placed in clean rows on paper or dialogues that travel through air columns. All stories transform worldly experiences into sources of inspiration and perspicuity and Saul Indian Horse’s story is no exception. In Richard Wagamese’s novel, Indian Horse, Saul Indian Horse explains the events that have resulted in him receiving treatment for alcoholism at a rehab centre. Readers are exposed to the former hockey player’s moments of triumph, failure, and everything that falls in between. Saul mentions in his story how a leisure pursuit like hockey granted him temporary freedom and happiness from his sorrow-filled life. Saul’s example can inspire First Nations individuals to remain resilient in the face of adversity.
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
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
In the book All the Pretty Horses by Cormac McCarthy, symbolism is shown in multiple different ways. Symbolism is the usage of symbols to represent ideas and qualities. When reading the book, in the beginning these symbols do not tend to stand out, but as the plot continues symbols are found everywhere. Multiple symbols are used throughout the story like horses, blood and water. Some more less-noticeable symbols are dust, religion, and sunsets.
How White people assumed they were better than Indians and tried to bully a young boy under the US Reservation. Alexie was bullied by his classmates, teammates, and teachers since he was young because he was an Indian. Even though Alexie didn’t come from a good background, he found the right path and didn’t let his hands down. He had two ways to go to, either become a better, educated and strong person, either be like his brother Steven that was following a bad path, where Alexie chose to become a better and educated person. I believe that Alexie learned how to get stronger, and stand up for himself in the hard moments of his life by many struggles that he passed through. He overcame all his struggles and rose above them
Humans are never perfect, and their emotions often conflict with their logic. In “The Scarlet Ibis”, the narrator receives a physically disabled brother, Doodle, thus trains Doodle physically so that he could live a normal life. Throughout the story, the narrator’s actions and thoughts reveals his true personalities to the audience as he slowly narrates the story of himself and his scarlet ibis, Doodle, whose existence he dreaded. In the story written by James Hurst, pride, love, and cruelty, these conflicting character traits all exists in Doodle’s brother. And the most severe of all, pride.
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
A seventeen year old boy, Alan is brought to a psychiatric hospital because he has blinded six horses with a hoof pick. Dysart, a psychiatrist, works to “normalize” the boy, feeling that as he makes the boy “safe” for society, he is taking away his worship and sexual vitality, both of which are missing in the doctors own personal life. Dysart actually envies Alan and the sexual worship he has experienced. In spite of his own hang-ups, the doctor does help the boy work through his obsession, in which he identifies the horse Equus with God.
Over the past two centuries, First Nations people have been oppressed by the Canadian society and continue to live under racism. The struggles, injustices, prejudice, and discrimination has played a significant role in the construction and impact of how they are treated and viewed in the modern society. Saul Indian Horse from Richard Wagamese's "Indian Horse" and Chanie Wenjack from Gord Downie's "The Stranger" are the perfect examples of how the belief that First Nations were inferior to the Europeans impacted the Aboriginal generations. However, both of the characters can be compared and contrasted by the following ways. As they both go through the breakdown of family bonds and the traumatic sufferings of residential schools, but they differ
Dorothy Johnson in “A Man Called Horse” writes about a young man who was born and raised in Boston. He lives in a gracious home under his grandmothers and grandfather’s loving care. For some reason, he is discontent. He leaves home to try to find out the reason for his discontent. Upon leaving he undergoes a change in status and opinion of himself and others. He begins a wealthy young man arrogant and spoiled, becomes a captive of Crow Indians- docile and humble, and emerges a man equal to all.
In the 2007 novel, The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, by Sherman Alexie, various themes are explored which are extremely relevant with regards to the everyday struggles one experiences with the coming of age. The main theme of the story is hope, and that in hardship, there is joy to be found. This theme however, would not be so emphasized without the very prominent theme of violence, which is extremely profound in the main character, Arnold Spirits and as well as associated characters’ lives, through both physical and psychological violence as a result of alcohol, bullying, race differences, and being different. This essay will examine the reasoning behind violence and
The only means by which one could attain complete happiness is to avoid living in constant expectation of it. It’s the expectation that causes our unhappiness and consequent bitterness about life. [Mohammed Naseehu Ali] Expectations aren’t often chosen, yet they’re assigned to each, and every person; whether, they’re from parents, teachers or even friends. All these people want the best for us, but sometimes in the process they can become overbearing and irksome. In D.H Lawrence's tragic short story The Rocking Horse Winner it’s prevalent that the writing is strongly influenced by the writer's outlook on societal issues, and how the writer may be resentful of expectations placed in his own life.