There are many issues in the novel Three Day Road by Joseph Boyden, however the issue that stands out to me the most is the stereotyping of Aboriginals throughout the novel. Stereotyping is an issue that has been around since the beginning of our race, and unfortunately has continued to be an issue until now and will probably continue for the rest of time. Although some people have broken the stereotypes, ie. blonde scientists or wealthy African Americans, people still tend to treat most Aboriginal people the same way as if they were from the 1900's, wearing tribal clothing and dancing around a fire.
In Three Day Road, despite the fact that Xavier, Elijah, and Niska are from a time where Native Americans would hunt for their food by themselves, they are still stereotyped further in this fiction novel, and I believe Niska is the greatest case of stereotyping out of all of the main characters. Niska's father was the tribes shaman of sorts, and when he was killed by the wemistokishiw his powers went to Niska "After a formal greeting he told me how he knew and respected my father, how he also knew that I was my father's daughter and had inherited his gift." (166).
Niska is from the "Noble Savage" stereotype, "usually possessing some spiritual connection to the land, the Noble Savage (whom American academic Rennard Strickland calls “the first ecologist”) communes in a cloud of mysticism and places no value on material possessions." which is quite accurate to what happens when Niska is summoning animal spirits to see if she still has her powers: "For days I tried to summon the souls of animals to come to me in my tent, but it was as if I'd somehow offended them and I sat there for hours at a time, praying and rocking, burning sweetgrass and searching the blackness for something to show itself to me." (165).
"Indians are “the only population to be portrayed far more often in historical context than as contemporary people.”, an unfortunate fact about Aboriginals. When was the last time you saw a film with an Indian in it who wasn't from a tribe or didn't have some mystical powers? When was the last time you saw an Indian in a film or story that wasn't just a person?
Niska's role also comes with another stereotype: "The most flagrant omission in movies and television is the Aboriginal woman. When she is included, it is most often as a “sexual savage” (who cannot be tamed and must therefore be degraded and eventually conquered)." which I believe is a more dominant issue than the stereotyping of her powers. When the Frenchman that Niska is considering to be her mate leaves her for a time, she goes and finds him in a white-man town, when she finds him he takes her to a church, has sex with her inside, and afterwards says: "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). She then flees and spends time in her tent where she summons the animals again and asks them to kill the Frenchman, later on she finds out that he committed suicide.
Three Day Road contains a lot of stereotyping of not only Indians, but of the white soldiers as well, however I feel that Niska's character deals with it the most. Stereotyping is a sick thing and it should be abolished from our minds, as all it does is hurt people who are different from ourselves.
Works Cited
"Common Portrayals of Aboriginal People." Common Portrayals of Aboriginal People. Web. 24 Apr. 2015. http://mediasmarts.ca/diversity-media/aboriginal-people/common-portrayals-aboriginal-people
Boyden, Joseph. Three Day Road: A Novel. New York: Viking, 2005. Print.
Friday, April 24, 2015
Friday, April 17, 2015
ISP Blog #2: Post-Colonialism in Three Day Road
In the novel Three Day Road by Joseph Boyden, the three main characters are dealing directly with post-colonial rule of Natives during World War I, and of years before that when Niska was young. Native Americans were oppressed by the wemistikoshiw (white people) from the minute they found out there was life on the soil they planned to take for their own, to this very day, and so far this novel is doing a pretty good job of showing that by giving readers a look into the lives of three different Natives, with different glimpses into their past.
When Niska was a young girl, her family was driven out of their home in the woods because white people were using all of the animals for their own needs, not saving any for the Natives. Once they reached the town of Moose Factory, Niska was soon sent to the school where the nuns were meant to teach her proper English, and give her manners. However, that went South pretty quickly when she didn't obey all of their rules. The nuns cut Niska's long hair just like everybody else's, short and even."They were going to remove the black hair that reached to my waist as a symbol of wemistikoshiw authority, of our defeat." (93). She didn't take that so well, and so one night when she saw her chance, she went and shaved her whole head, having her sent down into a cell where she would be held until her hair was grown. "After a week of talking to no one and of being given a single bowl of porridge to eat each day, I began to have strange visions. Sister Agnes told me that I would not come out until my hair grew back." (93). Soon after, her mother came and broke through the small window of the room, and freed her. However she would always hold hate deep in her heart from the cruelness of the wemistikoshiw.
Xavier experiences the post-colonial rule almost everyday during his time fighting in the war. The first is when him and Elijah are on their way to the war by train, and they are sent to the back Another incident is when Elijah is bragging about he success to all of the other soldiers, he tends to forget that Xavier is actually superior to him "How soon they seem to forget who is the better shot. None of them know that I am the one who taught Elijah what he knows about hunting." (100). Since Xavier doesn't speak English fluently, he finds himself just sitting back and watching and listening to what's going on around him, not speaking and just following Elijah around in the strange place he doesn't understand.
Elijah is a minor character at the point in the novel so far, he's spoken about a lot but you never get to see his point of view. You can tell he is affected by colonialism because although he is Native, he starts to adapt to the ways of the British, first by taking up their accent "To make it all worse, Elijah's taken to talking in an English accent in the last days. This makes the soldiers laugh, but I wonder why he really does it." (77) He also starts lying to impress those around him "He tells jokes and makes the others laugh and brags that he has now killed men, all of them close enough that he could hear them die. But is it the truth? I don't think so." (77). Elijah starts trying to fit in to the new world that he has accepted, making post-colonialism his way of life.
From each characters side of the story, you see how they are adapting, or refusing to adapt to the post-colonial world that they are now living in. Joseph Boyden does an amazing job at showing oppression in each characters stories, giving you a view of what schooling was like, and how Native soldiers were in the war.
When Niska was a young girl, her family was driven out of their home in the woods because white people were using all of the animals for their own needs, not saving any for the Natives. Once they reached the town of Moose Factory, Niska was soon sent to the school where the nuns were meant to teach her proper English, and give her manners. However, that went South pretty quickly when she didn't obey all of their rules. The nuns cut Niska's long hair just like everybody else's, short and even."They were going to remove the black hair that reached to my waist as a symbol of wemistikoshiw authority, of our defeat." (93). She didn't take that so well, and so one night when she saw her chance, she went and shaved her whole head, having her sent down into a cell where she would be held until her hair was grown. "After a week of talking to no one and of being given a single bowl of porridge to eat each day, I began to have strange visions. Sister Agnes told me that I would not come out until my hair grew back." (93). Soon after, her mother came and broke through the small window of the room, and freed her. However she would always hold hate deep in her heart from the cruelness of the wemistikoshiw.
Xavier experiences the post-colonial rule almost everyday during his time fighting in the war. The first is when him and Elijah are on their way to the war by train, and they are sent to the back Another incident is when Elijah is bragging about he success to all of the other soldiers, he tends to forget that Xavier is actually superior to him "How soon they seem to forget who is the better shot. None of them know that I am the one who taught Elijah what he knows about hunting." (100). Since Xavier doesn't speak English fluently, he finds himself just sitting back and watching and listening to what's going on around him, not speaking and just following Elijah around in the strange place he doesn't understand.
Elijah is a minor character at the point in the novel so far, he's spoken about a lot but you never get to see his point of view. You can tell he is affected by colonialism because although he is Native, he starts to adapt to the ways of the British, first by taking up their accent "To make it all worse, Elijah's taken to talking in an English accent in the last days. This makes the soldiers laugh, but I wonder why he really does it." (77) He also starts lying to impress those around him "He tells jokes and makes the others laugh and brags that he has now killed men, all of them close enough that he could hear them die. But is it the truth? I don't think so." (77). Elijah starts trying to fit in to the new world that he has accepted, making post-colonialism his way of life.
From each characters side of the story, you see how they are adapting, or refusing to adapt to the post-colonial world that they are now living in. Joseph Boyden does an amazing job at showing oppression in each characters stories, giving you a view of what schooling was like, and how Native soldiers were in the war.
Tuesday, April 7, 2015
First Impressions of "Three Day Road" by Joseph Boyden
The first thing that I would like to point out about this book is the style of writing that the author uses. He chooses to separate the chapters of the novel by switching between the two main characters points of view. One chapter you'll be hearing from Xavier's view, speaking of the war he was just sent home from and his experiences with his friend Elijah, and then Niska, talking about her past and the way that she is feeling about Xavier's current health. I can see the author continuing on with this and having each of them go into more detail of their past lives, then flashing forward to their current state in the story. I believe that later on in the story we will hear in graphic detail about how Xavier lost his leg and about how he became addicted to morphine. Speaking of Xavier, I picture him constantly wearing a Canadian army uniform the entire time, I see him having a young slender face with paler skin than the average Canadian Indian would typically have at that time because of his morphine addiction. I picture Niska wearing kind of a stereotypical Canadian Indian outfit, moccasins and a colorful hide poncho, and long braided dark hair, with an elderly wrinkled face. The images of the two main characters are based entirely on stereotype, but it's exactly what I see. The only puzzle that I am trying to put together about the story at the moment is why Xavier was concerned about Elijah when they were paddling through a forest fire, and Elijah was smiling. I understand why he would be worried because that's not exactly a happy scene to be looking at, but I'm wondering if maybe he will go into detail about something in their past that happened to make him concerned, or if something big is going to happen later on in the story that will bring his worry for his friend to life. This book is giving me a pretty good impression of this author, I believe that he is a realist based on the fact that he, a male author, spoke about Niska getting her period for the first time. Most authors in general wouldn't bring that up in a book yet he spoke about it clearly, and although it kind of plays into the story, it was still a shock to me that a man would actually speak about that. I don't know this author and I have't seen a picture of him, but based on the Native words he uses in the novel and the way that he speaks from the characters point of view makes me wonder if he is Native himself. So far the story is making me realize just how much I appreciate the flip between characters, it just spices things up every once in a while so you aren't reading from the same point of view the whole time like in some other stories. I find that if I hit a boring part in the story that I kind of zone out so I just have to try my best to think that if I get through this part, there will be a much more exciting part to follow.
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