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).