Themes in Three Day Road

Racial conflicts

War

Struggle through drug addiction

How to gain respect and be a hero

Cultural identity

Desire to kill

Captive Niska : Warning

funny hair cuts

solitude

defeat

Solitude

Morphine

Cree

eat off the floor

Murder of windigos is justified for the safety of the clan

White people

starvation

smiled when compared to a devil

scratchy dress

learn how to stomach wemisitkoshiw food

Niska rebels against the nuns and shaves off all her hair

shouting

click to edit

Used to instill authority for the nuns and humiliation for the Cree.

Xavier is trying to understand how the war works and why innocent people are being involved (beginning of the book)

Prejudice

Racism

Why people who don't know each other are trying to kill each other.

Not be called useless

Not be discrimiated after the war by the wemisticoshiw

Commences with a failed trench raid

In war, among the men, it doesn't matter who you are as long as you rake up kills.

How does Boyden show Native American culture?

Language barriers

Culture

Residential school (Chapter 8 - Learning)

Windigos

Assimilation

Niska communicates with spirits

They were treated like an inferior race

Clans

Unable to express themselves with the wemistikoshiw

relationships still exists between them (chapter 12 - Seducing)

Racism

Xavier kept a pouch of herbs and his mocassins when he went to war

In the army

Shaved

Living in the bush instead of staying on a reserve (Niska) to protect their culture

In everyday life

Xavier feels bad for burrying people in the ground, because in his culture they are put high up in trees so their souls can leave without barriers (page. 112: he says his own prayers for Sean Patrick when he dies)

Heathens

Can't speak their own language

Made to speak English

Have to do more to get the same as white peoples if not less

Have to be Catholic

difficulty in the war (communication struggles) (p.29 paragraph 2)

Slowly made to depend on the white people

Not given the same recognition

Using every part of the bear, because they worship this animal (chapter: my Father)

Finding where game will be by doing ceremonies with old bones

Has a proximity to nature demonstrated in the passage where Elijah compares the amount of trees burnt to the amount of casualties in this certain place

The nuns use violence

Learnt not to waste any part of an animal in respect

Solitary confinement

They beat the children

Identity

first nations identitiy

identity in the war

Hunting

being close to nature

respect towards elders

spirituality

respect towards animals

using every part of the animal

not killing some animals

Don't view Aboriginals as humans

veiwed as heathens

hunter

hunted

soldier

sniper

killed

killer

Elijah - prides himself in being almost barbaric

Xavier - Hesitates to kill and take action

Juxtaposition of Xavier and Elijah

Respect for life and FN values