Comparing Saul Indian Horse And Richard Wagamese's Indian Horse

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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 …show more content…

Due to the following reasons and other Canada's racist policies towards Aboriginal people, their unemployment and poor education ratios are very high. The breakdown of family bonds is evidently noticeable in both of the texts. It was a great sorrow to both Saul and Chanie when they were indirectly isolated from their families. As in Saul's case, his parents (brainwashed by residential schools) left him alone with his grandmother, when his brother John perished from an excessive cough. As he describes in the story, "'Heathen,' my mother spat. ‘He is my son. We will take him to the priest.'" (Wagamese 31). Other than his parents leaving him, his grandmother Naomi who he loved the most, also took her last breath in his hands due to starvation and exposure to the harsh weather conditions, on their way to Minaki. Similarly, Chanie Wenjack who decided to escape from Cecilia Jeffrey School and walk 600km to Ogoki Post, to see his family, died just after covering 19km. Being lonely and isolated from his family, he was emotionally forced to risk his life and travel in harsh weather conditions, with only a cotton windbreaker and no food. As a result of diminished family …show more content…

Just let me catch my breath."
Like Chanie, Saul also gets a chance to escape the traumatic sufferings at the residential schools. As he gets adopted by Fred Kelly, on the basis of his magnificent and impressive hockey skills. Therefore, the dreadful horrors of the residential schools played an important role in shaping the future lives of not just Saul and Chanie but all the other Aboriginal children who attended the

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