But by the end of the novel, Saul realizes that his pleasant memories of the priest were fictions born of self-preservation. He appears to find the beginnings of freedom with Father Gaston Leboutilier, who introduces Saul to hockey and presents himself as his friend. Saul watches as the students around him are subjected to constant emotional, physical, and sexual abuse with the aim of beating the Ojibway out of children and transforming them into Christians. Jerome’s.įor the rest of his life, Saul is marked by the past he lost at Gods Lake, and the traumas that replaced it once he arrived at St. When Ben dies of tuberculosis, the family splinters and Saul is taken to a residential school called St. Ben escapes and Naomi takes the family to Gods Lake, which will become the most important place in Saul’s life, the place where he lived Ojibway traditions and shared them with his family. From a young age, he understands the danger of white people, who are responsible for abducting his mother and father, and later his brother Ben, to place them in “residential schools” for reeducation. His early childhood centers around his grandmother Naomi, who tells him stories and passes down Ojibway knowledge and legends. Saul's people are the northern Ojibway, an Indigenous group who live along the Winnipeg river. The novel is framed as a memoir he is writing about his own life as a form of therapy. Saul is the protagonist and narrator of Indian Horse.
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