Saul’s root causes are his trauma. “All that I knew of Indian died in the winter of 1961, when I was eight years old” (Wagamese 8). In the novel Indian Horse written by Richard Wagamese, a young lad named Saul has faced a lot of traumas throughout his life. In this essay I will be sharing with you what I believe are the root causes of Saul trauma. Sauls main cause of his trauma is the loss of his families/communities, the loss of them brought forth even more trauma like; his time spent at St. Jerome’s residential school, his time with the game of hockey and, the alcohol that destroyed his life. Those three events stand out the most when talking about the root causes of his trauma. The loss of Saul, the Indian Horse family, leaves him alone …show more content…
As Sauls lost his identity continually to the alcohol, until at one point Sauls identity was completely lost. Saul was fully taken over by the alcohol he was physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually destroyed, and at one point almost bringing him to near death seizures because of alcohol withdrawal. “It’s funny how bartenders always tell you to drink up. When you’re lost to it like I was, you always drink down. Beyond accepting everyday things like home, a job, a family, a neighbourhood. You drink beyond thinking, beyond emotion. Beyond the hope of the world. You drink down because after all the roads you’ve travelled, that’s the only direction you know by heart. You drink down to where you can’t hear voices anymore, can’t see faces, can’t touch anything, can't feel. You drink down to the place that only diehards drink cards now; the world at the bottom of the well where you hide in the darkness, haunted forever by the knowledge of light. I was at the bottom of that well for a long time. Coming back up to daylight hurts like a son of a bitch” (Wagamese 189). This quote shows how his whole life was destroyed by