Three Day Road is a powerful account of two friends numbed by the horrors and cruelties of warfare. Boyden gaudily and instrumentally portrays themes such as self-conflict, inferiority, competitiveness, culture clash, and impact of a childhood trauma. What intrigued me the most was how well his imagination painted the clash between the Aboriginals and the wemistikoshiw, as if he experienced everything himself. I could feel and understand every single character’s emotions, and thoughts because he painted it so vividly. Though Boyden’s diction is rather simplistic, how he joins figurative language and symbols to let us see through Niska’s and Xavier’s eyes is very rich and creative. This also allows him to express many indigenous traditions and ways of life- an interesting insight into aboriginal’s mentalities and how the clash of cultures affects them.

Because I would like to discuss several significant observations I made whilst reading the novel, I don’t want to simply answer 1 question from the list. Rather I would like to analyze the 3 major characters in the novel, and this would allow me to cover several of the questions.

Analysis of Characters

Xavier is the second to last person alive from his bloodline of windigo killers (medicine men/ healers), who are also the spiritual leaders of their tribes responsible of foretelling the future and taking necessary precautions from whatever the future holds to protect their tribes. Xavier seems to have intuitive, excellent observational skills and abilities to understand people’s insights. It is evident that he has intuitive powers throughout the novel e.g. when he instinctively followed the call of the grouse out to the playground (which was Niska). Xavier is also very spiritual and seeks/ believes in universal signs and warnings all around him; Elijah criticizes this. Xavier barely knows his mother, Rabbit, who became an alcoholic and gave him away to the nuns at the residential school. Niska came to save him when he was 3-4 winters old, and he chose to leave with her without hesitation. Niska then raised him in the bushes, teaching him of his cultural knowledge and ways of life. They moved closer to the Cree when he was old enough to want friends, and he went to search for his best friend from residential school- Elijah. Elijah then comes to visit Niska and Xavier very often to hunt, and play with Xavier, and the two kids grow up together. They make a decision to fight for the army, and though it was probably Elijah’s idea and desire to join the army, Xavier’s character doesn’t let his best friend leave alone.

Elijah, on the other hand, grew up in a residential school, after losing his mother, and he barely knows his father. After spending his whole childhood and teenage hood at a residential school, he is more conflicted than Xavier. Elijah has natural talent for tongues, and is easily adapted to residential school, and the wemistikoshiw’s culture and language, as opposed to Xavier. Elijah “lives for what the day will bring” (52) according to Xavier. Throughout the whole novel, conflicts of competitiveness between the best friends develop into bitter resentment and eventually lead us to the climax of the novel. Though Xavier is better in the bush than Elijah (mentioned several times by Xavier himself, and this reveals Xavier’s competitiveness as well). Elijah has a restrained relationship with Xavier, and his esteem is based in large part on his competitiveness with Xavier. They are both trying to prove themselves and their value to the wemistikoshiws around them because the wemistikoshiw makes them feel inferior and worthless, and the fact that they are trying to prove their worthiness to the wemistikoshiw is what divides/ separates them from each other, and poisons their friendship. Xavier mentions several times that he is a better shot than Elijah, but Elijah is a better killer. Xavier says, “I’m a good shooter but I don’t have the killing instinct for men” (138). Through the beginning of the novel we already sense Elijah’s aggression, and sadistic motives. An example of this would be when he shoots the bloated stomach of a dead horse just because he felt like shooting. This is very contradicting with the indigenous traditions of dealing with animals- e.g. how Niska’s father kills a hibernating bear out of desperation of surviving a harsh winter and prays to the bear and calls him “a fellow spiritual brother” and says that nothing of this bear can be wasted. This shows how Elijah is distant from his culture, and “the Indian inside him” truly seems to have been killed by the residential school. Elijah also developed “immoral” intentions from an earlier age when he stole the nun’s rifle and enjoyed shooting with it, and how he enjoyed hunting. Though some might argue that his enjoyment of hunting is cultural and “in his blood”, but Xavier says that, “No Indian religion in him. The only Indian Elijah wants to be is the Indian that knows to hide and hunt” (137). He also mentions that stealing the rifle from the nurse “is a small payment for her always wanting to bathe me” (267).

The memory of him saying that is described by Niska, and she says, “those words echoed in my head days afterwards” (267). She also makes an observation about the 2 boys shooting with the rifle, “Your shooting competitions were friendly but serious” (268). She then further remembers young Elijah asking Xavier why Niska calls him “nephew” and when Xavier replied that his name is “nephew”, Elijah says, “Your Christian name is Xavier”. Niska expands on this, “He did not say it meanly. I could tell from his voice that the boy was simply trying to understand” (268). This demonstrates his early confusion of identity. The significance of Niska’s role and narration in the novel can be demonstrated here. Boyden offers a third perspective and an observer of the two friends and their friendship, and because she witnessed both of them grow up, she provides us with additional important background information about the two friends that give us more understanding of the characters. She is also an important role in representing a lot of the indigenous cultures and traditions in the novel, as well as giving us a detailed background of their family, and the families division and separation. In addition to that, Niska’s character also offers us an aboriginal woman’s perspective on culture clash and self-conflict.

Back to analyzing Elijah’s character- in the beginning of the novel, Thompson asks Elijah if he enjoys killing and Elijah answers, “It’s in my blood.” Xavier is left to feeling excluded because Thompson doesn’t ask him the same question and Xavier is left to wonder, “How am I different?” This was the first important distinction between the friends that foreshadowed Elijah’s character development. Elijah used language to get Xavier in trouble, even since they were in residential school, to this day in the army. I believe that language was somehow the symbol of destruction and division in this novel. Elijah always abused his power with language to boost up his esteem and prove himself to be better than Xavier. And misunderstanding through the barrier of language is what led to Xavier killing Elijah- the letter from Niska that was translated, as “Kill Elijah is you have to, do what you got to do to come back.” But somehow this intervenes with the obligations of windigo killers of killing those who suffer from their misery and from Niska’s narrations these windigos often drive people to engage in cannibal activities. By the end of the novel, Elijah is a morphine addicted, heartless murderer and a cannibal, and is completely insane. Xavier kills his best friend to kill his windigos, continuing his aunt’s practices. Niska once mentions, “I am a healer, nor a murderer. To heal you need to cut out the sickness” (264). However, I am sure some will argue that Xavier killing Elijah was the consequence of his built up bitterness of feeling inferior to Elijah throughout the whole 20 years they together served in the war. I would argue that’s not true because throughout the whole novel, though there are a few cases where Xavier compares himself to Elijah, there are no negative thoughts towards Elijah- all his intentions towards his friend is positive, and protective. He once even observes his friend and says that Elijah is “beautiful like an animal” (231). He thinks about Elijah on his “three day road” to death and says, “If Elijah comes back to me, and he will help me… We will fight together again, against this medicine that consumes us, I will pull him from the war madness that swallowed him whole” (270). Speaking of the “three day road”, the symbolism of three is represented throughout the whole novel and every time it is correlated with death and because the number three has great significance in Christian beliefs, and Xavier mentions this among with list of things that are represented in three that all have to do with war, destruction and death- Boyden is implying that Christianity, and the Church was cause and representation of death and evil.

Elijah’s name and its meaning has great significance in the novel and in his character development. Trickster- “the one who takes different forms at will” is his fundamental characteristic. Elijah can change personalities, and fool everyone around him whenever he needs to- “He never lost his ability to talk. Fooled everyone that he wasn’t mad with his talk, but he could never fool me,” Xavier says. Also when Elijah first jokes about eating German’s meat, Xavier noticed “the gleam of the trickster in his eyes” (310).

Prior to starting Three Day Road by Joseph Boyden, we watched a documentary called “It’s Time” by CBC. The documentary touches on several issues at hand, as well as provides a background history of the First Nations. The documentary discusses the foundation of Canada, and the aboriginal people’s impact on the formation and establishment of Canada. They weren’t conquered by the European colonisation- they signed treaties to share their land and uniting together to form Canada both parties agreed to benefit from each other. Promised to be provided with shelter, health care and all the possible benefits of being a Canadian citizen in negotiation of their land, the aboriginal population joined in hand with the settlers.

From the documents by the Indigenous Foundations, I learnt the significance of the Indian Act. The Indian Act was based on the assumption that in order to function within Canada, the Aboriginal peoples needed to adopt a “Canadian identity” and abandon their cultures and traditions. Colonial mentality interpreted the Indians culture and way of life as “primitive” and “savage” and they need the direct intervention and direction of the government in order to function as a part of “civil” society. The Indian Act is a legislation that legally defines the identity of an Indian. Consequently, the Act created a conceptual framework for understanding the identity of Aboriginals affecting both the mainstream society’s intake and interpretation of them as well as affecting the Aboriginals understanding of their own identity. The Indian Act has so many unsettling parts to it, such as the two-generation cutoff mechanism that was enforced by the government onto the Aboriginal population. Also the sex discriminational law of losing your status as an Aboriginal if you marry a non-aboriginal. These kinds of oppressive laws enforced in the Indian Act was a tactful way of racial engineering by the government. The Indian Act has significantly impacted the Aboriginal population in their search for identity, and status within the Canadian society. However, even though the Indian Act is an oppressive piece of legislation, it is also the only legal document that recognises the Aboriginals and gives them distinct identity within Canada, as well as distinct rights.

An unsettling and a subtle message expressed in the documentary that caught my attention was how they kept correlating the Aboriginal population to the economic development of Canada. The host of the documentary, an Indian himself, kept mentioning the importance of the Aboriginals in the contribution to the economic development of the country, and how there is potential 300 billion dollars to be gained through the Aboriginals because a lot of Asian countries rely on Canada for resources, and to transfer these resources, they need Aboriginal people’s help because they are transferred through Indian lands. Though the documentary positively portrays the Aboriginals, their agency, development and their place within today’s society, it seemed to me as if the host of the documentary, as well as the former Prime Minister Paul Martin were trying to prove the Aboriginals worth and their value through the economical benefits they can gain from the Aboriginals. Paul Martin also mentions how Canada is competing with economically developing countries such as India and China, and these countries have populations of billions whereas Canada has 34 million people, and that Canada can’t afford to waste a single talent. He also mentions how Aboriginal young population is growing 6 times faster then other populations. I found the former prime minister to be very capitalist/ neoliberal, and as if he cares only about economically benefitting from the Aboriginal population. The major intention of this documentary was to demonstrate to the public that “It’s Time” for Aboriginals and the rest of Canada to come in partnership and to develop together as a unified nation, and it disturbs me how they have to prove themselves and their worth by providing economic evidence of how they can contribute to the development of Canada.

Another very disturbing part of the documentary was the therapy session, and educating farmers about Aboriginal background and understanding them. The two farmers that were offended about this, and were very self-defensive in the end were changed and influenced because they were more educated about the whole situation. This demonstrates how the mass works- they don’t even have the full story straight, and based off of the very limited view they have on an issue they are so eager to come to conclusions and have strong biased opinions. And it is the government’s fault here for not incorporating the Aboriginals history and background in the public education system just because it is not their proudest part of history- it is a dark secret people avoided addressing for generations. It also shocked me when the high school students said that they were clueless, because personally coming from an IB school, I was revealed to all parts of world history and thankfully none bias education. This got me thinking about education systems, and how they shape mentalities of today’s global citizens (I say this because of today’s multicultural international society). In todays society where information/knowledge and the whole world is available to most people at a hand’s reach with the dominating influence of the internet and social media, the educational systems must focus their energies more in what kind of mentalities they are reproducing, and how that shapes the student’s character rather than only focusing on providing factual information/education. I guess what I mean to say is educational systems must train their students how to think, and not what to think.

Whilst reading The Handmaid’s Tale, I have reflected on and analysed over several significant themes and ideas represented in the novel, and their projections onto today’s society. Margaret Atwood offers us an extensive, “feminist” and a realistic (meaning highly correlated with real life issues/ strong contextual influence) take on the dystopian vision other prominent authors have warned us about before. The Handmaid’s Tale strongly influenced by George Orwell’s 1984, shares similar themes and ideas of the mechanisms, and tactful exercises used by totalitarian governments in order to maintain their power and brainwash over their people.

George Orwell’s envision of the future was inspired by the aftermath of the second World War, and its strongly impacted paranoia of the Communist influence on the democratic free spirit of the US. Margaret Atwood on the other hand envisioned a future of a totalitarian society that could have possibly been the consequence of the increasing power of the religious right wing politics, correlating their ideologies to the current (at the time) social injustices, and social issues regarding the roles of women in society.

In the article ‘Just a Backlash’ Shirley Neuman quotes Atwood, “Am I a propagandist? No! Am I an observer of society? Yes! And no one who observes society can fail to make observations that are feminist. That is just… common sense.”  I could not have agreed more with Atwood on this and how this correlates to the label feminist. The label itself is so extreme, and carries so many implications and connotations, same as all labels and stereotypes, and reading this from the article reminded me of how we have to be very critical and careful when using labels and stereotypes. Atwood also said that she invented nothing in Gilead, and that everything she envisioned is a potential extension of the real world we live in. Neuman further provided a lot of real life evidence relating to the oppression of women e.g. women being forced out of universities, out of their jobs, and back into their homes in Afghanistan in 1984. Another significant correlation Neuman made was how a right winged spokeswoman Phyllis Schlafly in the 80’s is identified as the prototype of the Aunts and/or Serena Joy from the novel.

Backing away from the context of the novel, as mentioned before, Atwood incorporates a lot of significant themes and ideas about the tyrannical tendencies and oppressive mechanisms used by governments to brainwash and control their people. Similar to 1984, psychological manipulation is the fundamental bases of a totalitarian society. The psychological stimuli they enforce on their people is designed in a way that it overwhelms the mind’s capacity for independent thought. Using various of propaganda to constantly stimulate the minds of the people with their ideologies and practices, and further controlling them by constant surveillance (+ physical control), they completely occupy the minds of the people that there is no space for them to think and develop independent thoughts. On top of that, fear reigns over and clouds the people’s mentality. When the people are constantly occupied with everyday issues, and daily dealings with the oppression of the regime, they are being distracted from the moralities, and essences of their lives. And speaking of dealing with their daily oppressions, the theme of exercising and abusing what power an individual has over their lives to comfort their oppression is raised. As demonstrated through Offred, “loosening some of the rules” and being able to exercise somewhat power she has comforts the character’s fighting spirit and it leads to her growing content with her oppressive life. These practices of somewhat power of individuals leads to selfishness and leading to division between different groups of people, limiting unity of any sort and that is one of the greatest dangers of a totalitarian society; people being unable to unite.

Another correlation between The Handmaid’s Tale and 1984 is how totalitarian societies control information and history. By filtering out everything that people know, they enable the passage of true knowledge to the future generations, and completely re-creating the reality. By controlling the present, they are able to control the past, and by controlling the past they are able to justify their actions in the present. Another major theme present in both novels, and a theme that both authors can’t stress enough is the importance of language. In both dystopias, the government fully controls the language used by the people. Language is the central structure, the fundamental catalyst to human thought because it structures and limits the ideas that individuals are capable of formulating and expressing. Language being a major political agency, the regime makes it impossible to even conceive of disobedient or rebellious thought because the people are unable to even imagine it, and further even put into words. Lastly, the theme of “doublethink” present in 1984 is also present in The Handmaid’s Tale; everyone is the novel seems very self-conflicted and confused about their opinions. Even the architect of Gilead, the Commander himself is a victim of his own society, constantly searching for companionship and intimacy while preaching the importance of arranged marriage, and rejecting ideas of romance. He is also blind to the moralities of his own actions, and his hypocritical and corrupted actions such as engaging in recreational entertainments at Jezebel’s.