Final Post

Final Post

Is there a message or main theme you see emerging?  What is it and how is it shown? Are there any other books you have read or movies you have seen that also have this same theme? Explain.

Throughout Indian Horse, Saul is subjected to various kinds of racism due to his Aboriginal heritage, and this is a major theme that the novel takes on. Racial prejudice is evident all throughout the story from the cultural assimilation at the St. Jerome's residential school, to the physical and verbal abuse from Saul's white opponents in the hockey rink.  Even when being praised in the newspaper, they still refer to Saul as a "crazy redskin" or some other racist name. One of the biggest incidents of racism in the book was when Saul was sitting in a Cafe with his teammates and they were confronted by a group of drunk white men who proclaimed that they "don't eat with Indians." (pg. 133).  When the boys refused to leave, the white men took them out into an ally one by one and proceeded to humiliate them into submission by beating them up and then urinating on them to assert their dominance. Fortunately, they had mercy on Saul since he was still at a young age, but it was clear that the white men had a strong disdain for the Indian boys. The theme of racism in this novel reminded me of another book I've read called "The Boy in the Striped Pajamas" by John Boyne and the relationship between the Germans and the Jews. Even though this story is told through the eyes of an innocent boy named Bruno who is too young to fully understand what's going on in the world around him, the racial torment towards the Jewish people is still apparent. The cases of racial prejudice within both these novels were quite extreme, and there were definitely some similarities between Canadian residential schools and the Jewish concentration camps. Both places were constructed to exercise cultural assimilation, and while the residential schools didn't burn their residents like those at the concentration camps, they still had their own way of bringing unnecessary abuse and death to the students. The schools were designed to break students by depriving them of their cultural heritage and "When your innocence is stripped from you, when your people are denigrated, when the family you came from is denounced and your tribal ways and rituals are pronounced backward, primitive, savage, you come to see yourself as less than human." (pg. 88). All of these racial acts are motivated by how Saul is an Aboriginal Canadian living in a white-dominated society where the popular belief is that First Nations people are inferior due to their race. 

Write your opinion of a character's action or reaction to a situation in the book.  Do you think it was the appropriate course of action and would you have done the same? Why/Why not?

 One of Saul's major traits is his integrity, which is displayed in how he reacts to the comments and actions of his teammates, hockey fans, and players on opposing teams. Saul holds the sport of Hockey in high regard, and this is evident in how he rejects the idea of retaliating against players who attempt to pick a fight with him on the ice. Saul refuses to fight back because he believes that it will defeat the purpose of playing hockey for fun, and he knows he'll be penalized for it. Hockey is a game that Saul loves, and he wasn't about to allow it to be stolen from him, "There are times in this world when you have to look hard at yourself. The challenge you feel is the one that burns in your gut. I knew my team wanted me to buckle. They wanted me to bare my fights and fight. But I would not do that. I would not surrender my vision of the game. I would not let go of my dream of it, the freedom, the release it gave me, the joy the game gave me. it wasn't anybody else's game to take away from me." (143). I admired Saul's mental toughness and how he didn't allow anything to get to him whether it be the hard hits from opposing players or racist comments from hockey fans in the stands. This is why it was disappointing for me when Saul finally allowed all of those negative things to get into his head. All the racial torment that Saul was able to ignore finally got to him and the frustration and resentment it bestowed upon him destroyed his life's potential. His integrity is replaced by aggression and a bitter mindset that eventually gets him kicked out of the NHL and addicted to drinking. All in all, it's unfortunate how racism crushed Saul's spirit and transformed his successful hockey career into a battle with alcoholism.