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Important to note:
- The language that was used in the novel makes us assume that father L was a “good”
priest; or at least wasn’t taking advantage of the kids like the other adults at the school.
“You’re free now, Saul.” (117)
But that wasn’t the case, and it makes us feel worse because we assumed everything
was alright.
There was a false sense of security in place for us, like a trap. Most, if not all of us fell for
it. It was specifically written like that for a reason.
- The white man thinking it’s their world. And don’t we still think that?
“But there were moments when you’d catch another boy’s eye and know what you
were both thinking about. Everything was contained in that glance. All the hurt. All
the shame. All the rage. The white people thought it was their game. The white
people thought it was their world.” (136)
To the whites, Saul’s status as a native lessens him as a person
“I wanted to rise to new heights, be one of the glittering few. But they wouldn’t just
let me be a hockey player. I always had to be the indian.” (164)
- The way that Saul describes things in the book have an unintentional (or intentional?)
religious tone to them. He was talking about leaving after Ben got back, and he was
using terms that he wouldn’t have even known if he wasn’t put into a school.
“Our canoes skimmed along and as i watched the shoreline it seemed like land
itself was in motion. The rocks lay lodged like hymns in the breast of it, and the
trees bent upward in praised like crooked fingers. (18)
It’s almost like he’s confused. He speaks with ojibway metaphors (using nature) in times
of religion and in time of describing ojibway he uses catholic terms.
“Sister Ignacia...Her hands like dried birch bark.” (47)
- Saul’s name… It’s both a name he inherited from his great grandfather but it’s also a
good catholic name.. Reason for that?
- He writes about the tragedies very vividly. About certain (mainly negative) experiences,
all the children dying from TB or other diseases, or being beaten and abused. He also
writes it with detachment, little emotion.
“Instead, she was gone. Frozen to death saving me…’’ (42)
“I read once that there are holes in the universe that swallow all light, all bodies.
St.Jerome’s took all the light from my life.” (43)
“I saw kids die from tuberculosis, influenza, pneumonia and broken hearts at
St.Jerome’s. I saw boys and girls die standing on their own two feet. I saw
runaways carried back, frozen solid as boards. I saw bodies hung from rafters on
thin ropes. I saw wrists slashed and the cascade of blood on the floor and, one
time, a young boy impaled on the tines of a pitchfork that he’d shoved through
himself. I watched a girl calmly fill the pockets of her apron with stones and walk
away across the field. She went to the creek and sat on the bottom and
drowned.” (55)
“There was a spectre in a group. We could see the shadow of this dark being in the lines of our
mother’s face…. The spectre lived in other adults too, my father and my aunt and uncle. But it's
most chilling presence was in my mother.” (8-9)
“When they returned they brought the white man with them in brown bottles. Spirits, Naomi
called them. Bad spirits.” (9)
“I discovered that being someone you are not is often easier than living with the person you
are.” (181)
Simile:
“The tearing away from the bush and my people was like ripped flesh in my belly.”(48)
“The Moose were like soldiers arming themselves for battle, and I stood there holding my new
gear bag in my hand, unable to move at first. The feel of their energy in that tiny shack like
ordnance built to explode.” (102)
Metaphors:
- Black cloud/ black dog …. A way to describe depression
“It seemed like an instant, the world I had known was replaced by an ominous
black cloud.” (47)
“St.Germ’s scraped away at us, leaving holes in our beings.” (52)
- When the captives? Were brought to the residential school, they were scrubbed down
“It felt as though they were trying to remove our skin.” (44)
And weren’t they trying to remove more? They were removing heritage, background,
religion, identity…
- These ghosts are metaphors for his bad memories. The trauma that he’s been through
“Sometimes ghosts linger. They hover in the furthest corners, and when you least
expect them to lurch out, bearing everything they brought to you when they were
alive. I didn’t want to haunted. I’d lived for far too long as it was.” (207)
“The Moose were like soldiers arming themselves for battle, and I stood there
holding my new gear bag in my hand, unable to move at first. The feel of their
energy in that tiny shack like ordnance built to explode.” (102)
“We were hockey gypsies, heading down another gravel road every weekend,
plowing into the heart of that magnificent northern landscape. (113)
Imagery:
- “The school itself was crumbling. Hollow. All the windows were smashed. The
ones on the top floor had been shot out, bullet holes splayed on the sills and
sashes. I could hear the flutter of birds within and the coo of the pigeons in the
eaves. Graffiti covered the walls with epithets and damnations. The leak of them
like blood. The scrunch of my steps echoed through the gaping windows.” (195)