...A character’s purpose in a story is to fight through challenges and solve problems created by the plot. In the descriptive story, Indian Horse, Richard Wagamese effectively creates the plot of escape in various ways using his amazing, but imaginary main character, Saul Indian Horse. By facing his challenges, Saul escapes from his early childhood life, the nightmares of the residential school, and the intolerable discrimination against his own race. Escape creates an opportunity to develop a different identity, thus permanently changing the character. Saul feels the need to escape from his difficult situations. To begin with, Saul and his grandmother must escape to a warmer climate to survive through the cold temperatures the winter season...
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...among the individual. Indian Horse by Richard Wagamese portrays exactly how one can lose culture due to the acts of violence. The acts of physical violence and psychological violence that Saul Indian Horse goes through allows the audience to make sense of the racism that has existed, and still can exist, in Canadian society; furthermore, this piece allows readers to understand the effect that racism has on one’s identity. The effects that the Canadian Residential School System’s brutality had on Saul, and even more so on Saul’s classmates, undoubtedly altered Saul and his identity. As soon as Saul arrives at St. Jerome’s Residential School, he is exposed to countless instances of traumatic situations. Saul recalled Lonnie being strapped by a Sister; this is the first of many counts of...
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...find peace,” said Michael Jordan. This sentiment resonates deeply with many athletes who turn to sports as an escape from the everyday hardships of life. In Richard Wagamese’s novel Indian Horse, the protagonist Saul’s journey mirrors this sentiment. Amidst a plethora of trauma, discrimination, and struggles to forge his identity, Saul discovers hockey as not just a game but a refuge. However, this refuge proves to be unsuccessful due to severe limitations. Saul’s journey demonstrates that sports can provide an immediate escape from reality. But they ultimately fail to offer lasting refuge from trauma, systematic racism in sports, and personal identity struggles....
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...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...
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