ISP Blog Post 6

The literary theory that gave me the most insight on my novel Three Day Road was Post-Colonial. Colonialism was a very influential force in the setting and time period of the novel. Three Day Road is a historical fiction novel; therefore post-colonial literary criticism provides more information about the history that occurred before all the consequences that Boyden describes. I believe that it is essential to have background knowledge on European and First Nation relations to fully comprehend the aftermath of colonialism. The Europeans started to explore to the Americas and brought back riches in raw materials. The valuable raw materials brought back to Europe from North America were lumber, fish, furs and minerals. The French and the British claimed most of the territory in North America.  Other developed countries caught on to the idea of expanding their empires. Royalty would even fund expeditions once they realized how much money they could generate from obtaining colonies.

Readers must understand that the European countries were more technologically advanced then the Aboriginals. Europeans built large ships capable of long voyages across the ocean while the Aboriginals only had two-man canoes. Europeans brought steel tools that revolutionized Aboriginal life. But the Europeans brought a lot more negative materials than positive. This includes rum “a sly and powerful weapon” (46) and foreign disease that wiped out entire tribes. Since the Europeans were more technologically advanced they labeled themselves better than the barbaric Indians. The “useless bush Indians” (109) were claimed to have no connection with their Christian God by the Europeans who found it their duty to God to convert the Aboriginals. They would trick tribes to hand over their land creating an imbalance of power. Cultural genocide was committed when the Europeans attempted to erase all fragments of Aboriginal culture, language and religion.

            Canada’s history before World War One must be known to fully appreciate Canada’s dark and secretive history that Boyden attempts to uncover. Colonialism created several consequences that most Canadians don’t realize was a direct result of colonialism. Viewing Three Day Road from a post-colonial literary criticism point has allowed me to develop an effective thesis statement…. Joseph Boyden describes several negative ways Aboriginals were affected by the arrival of the wemistikoshiw in Three Day Road. Colonialism created several consequences due to the parent-child relationship between the Aboriginals and the Europeans. The actions of the Europeans aren’t well known in Canadian history due to their cruelty. Boyden successfully uncovers Canada’s dark history and provides a voice for the oppressed Aboriginals.

ISP Blog Post #5; Archetypal Literary Criticism

            Joseph Boyden uses several different symbols, images and archetypal figures in order for the reader to understand the novel deeper. Different Cree words are used to explain their culture. Elijah is a Trickster archetypal type while Niska is the Great Mother. There is a reoccurring pattern of the number 3. It is mentioned in the title and is referenced throughout the novel. Boyden uses symbolism by hiding deeper meanings behind fire, water, circles and the lynx.

            Some reoccurring words within Three Day Road are written in Cree. Windigo is a creature or spirit that can possess both human and beast characteristics. Niska is from a powerful Cree family with a long line of windigo killers. She tells Xavier that this trait has also been passed to him once she notices his hunting talent. When Niska says, “I am second to last in a long line of windigo killers. There is still one more” (48) she is referring to Xavier. Wemistikoshiw is the Cree word for white people. This word is used whenever Niska, Elijah or Xavier talk about the European settlers. Awawatuk means old hunters. They came to Niska for advice because “The awawatuk accepted that I was a natural extension of my father, the new limb through which my family’s power travelled” (131). Matatosowin is a sweat lodge where Niska and Xavier go to call for the spirits. It is a circular hut that is warmed like a sauna with hot stones. Ponenimin is asking for forgiveness. Xavier repeats this word over and over in the matatosowin “for killing his friend (Elijah) over there in that place (France)” (380). The Cree version strengthens Xavier’s plea because he is trying to connect to Elijah in a way that is disconnected with the war. Wawahtew is Cree for the Northern Lights. Ashtum means come with me. Niska’s wemistikoshiw lover uses the simple words he knows in Cree to lure her into his church in attempt to take away her windigo spirit. Boyden uses the translated Cree to effectively tie the non-chronological pieces of the plot together. When Elijah doesn’t speak to Xavier in Cree and uses English instead its because “their tongue is better for lies” (51).

            Elijah is an example of a trickster archetypal type. He is always joking around even in the middle of a war. He entertains all the soldiers with his fake British accent. Once he handed Xavier a piece of meat and “smiled his wicked little-boy smile. No. It’s human. German, to be exact” (310). This prank caused Xavier to spit out the meat only for Elijah to explain that it was just horsemeat. He was also daring during his time in the Residential School.  Elijah would make fun of the nuns who ran the school making the other children laugh. Punishment always follows Elijah’s pranks.

            Niska is an example of the Great Mother archetypal type. She displays the positive aspects of Mother Nature. She is associated life principle, nourishment and protection. Niska rescues her nephew from Residential school and teaches him how to survive in the bush strictly off the land. She also takes in Elijah once he is finished Residential School. When Xavier comes home from the war with one less leg he is in lots of pain and addicted to morphine. He only has small number of needles left so Niska tries to help by telling stories and calling the spirits for his behalf.

            The number three is mentioned more times than just the title. Xavier finds that the white men are obsessed with the number three. “There’s the front line, the support line, and the reserve line, for starters. There’s the infantry, the cavalry, and the artillery. Off the battlefield, there’s food, then rest, then women. In church, there’s the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost” (Drainie). Xavier also realizes the number three in his own culture. Niska taught Xavier that those who are dying must walk the three-day road to death, hence the title.

            Boyden uses symbolism of the lynx. Niska gives the boys the tooth of a lynx that would offer them “speed, invisibility and vision” (294) before they left for the war. The spirit of the lynx is always the first to appear in her shaking tent. Another common symbol within the novel is circles. “Life is in a circle…. You always come back, in one way or another, to where you have been before” (360). Circles have always been dominant in aboriginal cultures.

Works Cited

Drainie, Bronwyn. "Three Day Road." Quill and Quire. Web. 04 May 2015.

<http://www.quillandquire.com/review/three-day-road/>.

ISP Blog Post 4- Feminist Literary Criticism and Three Day Road

            Joseph’s Boyden’s Three Day Road was set during World War One (1914-1918) when women had very little say in their role in society. It wasn’t until 1921 that Canadian women could vote in a federal election, but this didn’t include all women. Aboriginal and Asian women still weren’t allowed to vote at this time. The wemistikoshiw males deemed themselves superior to the wemistikoshiw women, and even more superior to the aboriginal women. To the male Europeans aboriginal women were considered the lowest of the low on the social scale.

            Aboriginal women played a very important role in their aboriginal societies before European contact. They would have say in decisions that involved the chief and had powerful statuses like clan mothers or healers. In some tribes it was tradition to take the last name of the women during marriage. Niska, the last Oji-Cree medicine women to live off the land had a very high status in the novel. She always had other aboriginals (mostly men) come to her for her visions and advice. She is known to be a “windigo killer” (169), which is an aboriginal spirit that possesses characteristics of both a beast and a human. This spirit is a gift that according to aboriginal tradition gets passed on through the generations of powerful families. Niska’s windigo spirit is valuable and is feared by the Christian Europeans. Her new wemistikoshiw affair eventually tries to take this from her.

            Young Niska becomes involved with a French trapper one Winter. She invites him into her tent and despite their language barrier he ends up taking her virginity. After the fact Niska admits “That’s when it dawned on me that maybe I wasn’t the hunter anymore” (134). The trapper left before dawns making the reader believe that he was only involved with Niska for physical pleasure but when they meet again the reader discovers his true goal. Niska’s mother notices a difference in Niska and warns her not to trust the trapper. She doesn’t listen because she was “too full of him and too flushed with him” (164). Niska goes into the wemistikoshiw town to find her trapper. As she walked through the town “The converted Indians blessed themselves and closed their doors when I walked by. Young men pointed at me and stared” (168). She was an outcast and everyone in town knew about her and the trapper. He was rumoured to have “a taste for red meat that he can’t satisfy” (169) and has many half-Indian, half-French children he refuses to claim. Regardless of all the warnings Niska meets with the French trapper and he takes advantage of her in his church. After he said “You are nothing special, just another squaw whore. I took your power away in this place and sent it to burn in hell where it belongs” (174). During their whole relationship he was trying to take her windigo spirit and power away.

            Aboriginal women were not the only women that were taken advantage of but European women too. When the soldiers get a break from the trench lines they go estaminets where “women come and men line up to be with them in the little rooms in the back” (155). One night Xavier beds one of the local women, Lizette. With all the drunken men always around her, he worries for her safety. Xavier wants to see Lizette again so he sneaks away from the front lines to visit her one night. She tells him “You can’t stay Indian boy, I’m with another. He is upstairs” (252). Xavier becomes enraged and tries to fight the other man. He was unaware that Elijah “paid a lot money for her time” (257) with Xavier. War creates hard times financially so the local women sell themselves for money. After all, it is the only job other than care for the house and children that they would have been allowed to do back then. The local whores are the only women mentioned in the in the war as women were not allowed to enlist. This would finally change once the Second World War started in 1939. Women have made a lot of equality advances since World War One and aren’t as limited as they were in Three Day Road.

ISP Blog Post 3; Issues Within Three Day Road

In Joseph Boyden’s Three Day Road he vividly paints the cruel experiences of Canadian residential schools. This issue is highlighted within the novel because all three protagonists Niska, Xavier and Elijah were forced to attend these schools. Residential schools are usually “forgotten” in Canadian history because it’s not something you want the world to know. This dark part of Canadian history seems to always get swept under the rug. Even though Three Day Road is a fictional novel, it still contains hard and real facts about residential schools.

The novel was set during World War One therefore you would think residential schools were only around during those few years. You would be wrong. The first residential school opened in 1880 and the last one closed in 1996! Residential schools and all of their harm have been around for over a century and have just recently stopped but Canadians still have very little knowledge about this part of their heritage. These government run schools were a cross-country issue effecting over 150,000 children and yet it is still Canada’s best kept secret.

The conditions in the residential schools created by Boyden in Three Day Road were horrible. Niska, Xavier and Elijah were ripped apart from their families and never allowed to visit “so the nuns could work their spells without any interruption.” (Boyden 91)  Soldiers told aboriginal parents “it is for the greater good of God that they come with me.” (Boyden 92) The settlers from Europe wished to erase all First Nation culture, tradition and language. The nuns who ran the schools had no respect for the children and told them “the old Cree are heathen, backwards and anger God.” (Boyden 56) The nuns forced their religion and language onto the children. If they were caught speaking their own tongue they would be punished by washing their mouth with lye soap and no food for days. “The younger children were beaten with switches and forced to eat food from the floor like dogs.” (Boyden 92)  Both Elijah and Xavier were beaten on their bare bottoms with branches by the nuns for simply disrupting the class. Abuse and cultural genocide are just the start of all the problems associated with residential schools.

Boyden created a horrible experience with residential schools without mentioning sexual abuse and death, which were also a reality. Researchers have been combing through old records and have already discovered 3000 deaths in residential schools. This number is already unbelievably large and they have only found records for about 1/5 of the existing schools.  According to researcher Alex Maass “The schools were a particular breeding ground for tuberculosis and dormitories were incubation wards.” The main cause of death in residential schools was disease, which could have easily been avoided if simple precautions were taken. For example caring for the sick children and keeping them away from the healthy ones, better nutrition and better ventilation.

Residential schools have finally been recognized for their cruelty and more people are trying to raise awareness of this issue. Researchers are trying  to get all the facts to educate the public about a serious problem that has always been right under their noses. This research from secondary sources has helped me understand residential schools even more by knowing the numbers of all those who have been effected. It wasn’t until 2008 that the government owned up to the reality of residential schools with Stephen Harper’s formal public apology. Canada is taking steps towards trying to compensate the victims but it still doesn’t change what happened to them.  

Sources

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/at-least-3-000-died-in-residential-schools-research-shows-1.1310894

http://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/residential-schools/

http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/st-anne-s-residential-school-one-survivor-s-story-1.2467924

Three Day Road by Joseph Boyden

ISP Post #2; Post-colonialism and Three Day Road

Joseph Boyden’s Three Day Road is set during World War One (1914-1918) where the world was becoming more and more colonized.  European countries wished to extend their empires and it soon became a race on who could be the most oppressive and rich country. Britain and France acquired most of North America at this time. The Canadian town, Moose Factory, where the three protagonists are from has influence from both French and British cultures.  The European colonists demonstrated imperialism by oppressing the Natives in several different ways. They created an unequal balance of power, cultural genocide and ignored the contributions of Native soldiers in World War One.

            The Europeans had a parent-child relationship with the First Nations in Canada. The European “parent” got to make all the rules while the dependent “child” is forced to follow. If the Natives refused their wishes serious consequences followed. But what gives the Europeans the right to be considered the parent? The Europeans considered themselves more superior due to their advanced technology and greed. This lead to “the Hudson’s Bay Company instilled in the Cree a greed for furs that nearly wiped out all the animals, and because of this the time came when even the most experienced of the bush men and women were faced with the decision to move to the reserve or die of hunger.” (90) The wemistikoshiw (white people) had another secret weapon, other than greed and it was rum. This was traded for furs and most importantly Native advice. “The Cree are a generous people. Like forest ticks the wemistikoshiw grabbed onto us, growing fatter by the season, until the day came when suddenly it was us who answered to them.” (48)

            During colonialism Native culture was wiped out. The Europeans literally tried to erase their traditions, way of life and language by sending them to residential schools. The nuns who ran the schools were determined to convert little Indian children to their language and religion. “The younger children were beaten with switches and forced to eat food from the ground like dogs.” (92) If the nuns caught any children speaking their Native tongue they would force lye soap into their mouth and not give them anything to eat for days. The children were pried away from their families and were never allowed to visit their parents “so that the nuns could work their spells without any interruption.” (91)

            Two of the Native protagonists Elijah and Xavier became Canadian soldiers in World War One where their contributions were ignored strictly due to their race. Even on their train ride to training camp they were forced to sit in a different rail cart than the wemistikoshiw. Once they were finally working in the trenches and recognized as snipers some of their finest kills weren’t believed. When Elijah tried to report a kill to Lieutenant Breech he said that Elijah’s claim was exaggerated and asked “how many canoe lengths” (196) Elijah was from his target. Elijah was rarely complemented once by stating that “he exhibits the best traits of an officer” (190) but his Lieutenant immediately shot down this idea. The Native soldiers are often referred to as “useless bush Indians” (109) and they never get their kills recognized by officers. Another Native soldier named Peggy is rumored throughout the novel of having close to one hundred kills but no officer will believe him.

            Colonialism is an evident and real-life problem within Three Day Road. Native culture has diminished due to European oppression. This novel highlights the unfortunately cruel reality of Canadian history and their residential schools. Soldiers who fought for Canada weren’t honoured for their work because of their culture. Joseph Boyden does an incredible job of uncovering Canada’s “dark” history of Aboriginal oppression.