Three Day Road Essay In Joseph Borden’s novel Three Day Road, the differences in Elijah’s and Xavier's childhood contribute to their different attitudes in war. Their upbringing has shaped how they face situations as adults. Xavier was raised by his aunt, Niska, a majority of his childhood after his mother was unfit to care for him as an alcoholic and his father had passed when he was young. Opposed to Elijah who was raised at a residential school in Moose Factory by nuns and has no recent memories of his parents. Throughout the novel, it is evident that these factors have major impacts on the differences between Xavier and Elijah. The differences in Xavier and Elijah are shown through the value of the human life, assimilation into European …show more content…
He gets this idea from a French soldier who claimed to do this as well to keep track of his kills. Elijah tells Xavier what happened the night of the raid after he returns. He tells of jumping over the parapet and breaking the roof on the German dugout as he falls. Three German soldiers reach for their rifles as he is stuck in the roof. Elijah kills one with his revolter, smashes his war club into another’s skull and then shoots the last soldier. Then “ he turns the dead man on his stomach and removes his sharpened skinning knife from its sheath and pulls the man's hair back and removes his scalp with careful motions as simply as he would remove the skin from a pike." ( Boyden, 210) Elijah wants proof of his kills to impress others as he believes this will help gain their approval. Xavier, on the other hand, kills out of necessity, an example of this is when Thompson wakes Xavier, Elijah, Sean Patrick, McCaan, and Graves for a scouting mission to locate whether the Germans are in one of the big craters. On their mission, they find three Canadian soldiers in the crater, two of which …show more content…
An example of this is when Xavier thinks back to the day he killed the sniper. McCaan sends Elijah, Thompson, and Xavier out to no-man’s land to frisk the dead sniper. The three retrieve the sniper’s rifle and bayonet. As Thompson, Elijah, and Xavier sit together charcoaling their faces, Elijah says “Jolly good night for a little snooping, eh, Thompson?” Elijah says. Thompson shakes his head at the words, and his teeth are white almost to a glow. “You do a better British accent than a Brit”, he says.” (Boyden, 137) Elijah is willing to speak like an English man, unlike Xavier who refuses to speak the langue entirely. Lastly, Elijah’s desire to gain acceptance is also evident in his willingness to assimilate into European culture. As mentioned before, an example of this is when Xavier thinks back to the day he killed the sniper. As Thompson, Elijah and Xavier talk, Xavier thinks “He began talking this way to get the others to laugh, but he likes it now. Makes him feel respectable. He told me there’s a magic in it that protects him.” (Boyden, 137) The quote is evident that Elijah wants to feel accepted because he feels he never fit in, since he never really had a family and loved ones. By speaking with a British accent and making others laugh Elijah loses his own culture to feel as if he belongs somewhere. Unlike Elijah, Xavier holds onto his culture even if it means he is not always