The Role Of Identity In Joseph Boyden's Three Day Road

The ongoing transformation of Xavier’s identity is the thematic centrepiece of Joseph Boyden’s Three Day Road. Being left to the church very young, he is christened ‘Xavier Bird’ by the nuns, but embraces the name ‘Nephew’ when Niska takes him into her care. He returns to his Christian title when he becomes a soldier, but his forced adoption of the name Elijah Whiskeyjack is a poetic element that offers insight on his fate and the metaphysical ties that bind him to his oldest friend. Even if one were to disregard his relationship with Elijah, Xavier’s shifting identities are benchmarks of his maturation. Joseph Boyden uses Xavier to showcase aboriginal epistemologies, centering on harmony and cooperation, against the backdrop of a World War

McCann and Thompson’s approaches to ‘teaching’ Xavier and Elijah how fight in the war are similar to the pedagogies Niska acted out, namely the physical “watch and learn” (Boyden 67) approach to education. Michael Garrett establishes a learning sequence that is common among aboriginal groups. It is comprised of first observing and listening, followed by supervised participation and then self-testing, in private when the youth feels ready (15). All of Xavier’s teacher follow a semblance of this process, whether in hunting or war practices. In contrast, the nuns in the residential school were oppressively authoritarian and undemonstrative (Boyden 218), similar to Lieutenant Breech, who relies on commanding from a distance, and earning Xavier’s dislike (Boyden 78) because of it. Xavier’s maturation process, from his early childhood with Niska, to his experiences in the war, is heavily steeped in aboriginal epistemology, and thus tied to nature. Readers and characters alike pick up that his connection to the natural world is his greatest strength. Once Thompson applies this to the war by commanding, “Bird, go to your nest.”, Xavier thinks “I am made for this.” (Boyden 86). Xavier’s teachers, those who cared for him or otherwise, are accompanied by a change in his

While Xavier is aware of the repercussions of his involvement in the war, Elijah increasingly overlooks that morality as the story progresses. Xavier’s self-perception is both mirrored and fragmented by Elijah. Their polarized personalities encourage them to be read as each other’s foil. At the most harmless level, Elijah’s ability to communicate counters Xavier’s silence, but as Xavier uses his English more pressingly to boast and self-aggrandize, an offense to traditional aboriginal values (Garrett 14), he moves further from the roots he shares with Xavier. ‘Warriorship’, although not heavily discussed in the novel, has a certain set of ideals in aboriginal cultures. Among them is the necessity of spiritual strength (Wolf 74) and desire to protect language and culture (77). Ultimately, a warrior is someone who wishes to help and serve the community (73), and Elijah on two separate occasions is characterized as only possessing the desire to be an “Indian that knows how to hide and hunt (Boyden 137), and later a “great chief of the people”. One caveat, is that for Elijah and Xavier, their community is Niska and each other. Even more so that their original