Indian Horse review

Indian Horse review

Introduction

In his non-fiction book, the Indian Horse, Richard Wagamese brings forward an essential character known as Saul, where he features his life story in Canada. The author describes Saul as an inhabitant in the current day Canada, who grew with a high passion for the hockey game. Although the whites predominantly play the game, Saul games confidence and participates with the other children to enjoy the love of the game. Over time, the hockey game becomes critical to Saul’s life, where he uses it to overcome several obstacles that come along his way of success. For instance, Wagamese uses the symbol of a hockey game to portray how Saul overcame traumatic experience when he was enrolled in the residential school. Further, the game becomes essential to Saul’s life when he has to fight racism from fellow white friends, who are perceived to be the white ice game dominants. The author uses these scenarios, among many others, to show how the symbol of hockey game shaped Saul to a successful person in life.

Hockey helps Saul escape from pressure and racist treatments in the residential school. Being a great player, Saul puts more effort into the field, which grants him the opportunity to shift to the next school to play with bigger boys. This incidence comes after humiliation at the St. Jerome’s Residential Indian school were even emerging as a great player; his original and racial trauma still haunts Saul. Richard Wagamese reveals that the relatives of Saul are also past victims of racial discrimination from indigenous schools in the white ice land of Canada. Significantly, his competence and prowess in a hockey game are used as an escape from such a dark story. Consequently, Saul becomes courageous, humble, and resilient to face life situations of all nature.

Saul uses hockey games to keep his brain occupied and peaceful. It is a general knowledge that when people are idle, evil thoughts roll over their minds to drive away from the comfort desired in life. With such a painful story of mistreatment in the city and at school, Saul decides to join the other boys and compete in the game to create a sense of comfort in his life. Although he still faces racist utterances, humiliation, and mistreatments, Wagamese narrates that Saul tries as much as possible to remain active, real, and determined to the duty. It is from his talent and skill of playing that draws many people close to Saul to the extent of becoming close friends. In such a way, he enjoys peace of mind state and can grow both physically and mentally. Professionally, Saul is described as a playmaker who able to swallow the anger and frustrations on racism.

In the Indian Horse book, hockey is used as a symbol to portray the difference between the present and the past of Saul’s life. Hockey game in Canada was initially viewed as predominantly a white person’s game. However, Saul’s ability to compete with the whites and emerging successful disapproves of the myth that only whites could play a hockey game. Additionally, his unparalleled passion for hockey tells it all that everyone is capable of playing. He wants states that “hockey is like the universe…when you stand in the dark and look up at it, you see the placid fire of stars. But if we were right in the heart of it, we’d see chaos. Comets churning by. Meteorites. Star explosions. Things being born, things dying. Chaos, Saul. But that chaos is organized. It’s harnessed. It’s controlled.” By that, can was known as a place vracism was highly practiced among the Indigenous people by their fellow white colleagues. However, Saul’s career as a hockey player mirrors a theme of change in the community and the actual identification of humanity of all races in the society. Moreover, it helps Saul find a place in the world of diversity where many people are against him in all manners of life.

Hockey has been used as a symbol of freedom to Saul on several occasions. The sensation of sliding on the white ice while playing hockey portrays the maximum liberty of the indigenous Canadians, which is ironical to the real actions. Significantly, Saul decides to take it himself to hide his subjection to racism by happily interacting with colleagues in the field. He tries to assume everything is okay, which creates a feeling of hope and acceptance to the rest of the Indian descendants and non-whites in the Canadian region. Perhaps, he is trying to teach society a great achievement of resistance to racial discrimination. Saul says, “When I hit the ice, I was effective. I scored twenty-three points in nine games. But the taunting from the stands continued, and I fumed and smoldered and racked up one hundred and twenty minutes in the penalty box…” This statement depicts Saul’s freedom to prove his greatness in the hockey game without being subjected to inferiority. He loves his own culture, the culture of his people and blood, and so that of the whites.

Hockey helps Saul Indian Horse to escape from what is referred to as everyday life violence, which, to some extent, is considered a lifetime challenge in the community. The Indian Horse by Wagamese reveals that Saul’s longtime ancestors avoided racial discrimination by engaging in alcoholism and drug abuse to get off the painful thoughts and live a little happy life. The story begins with the Ojibwe man whom the community mistakes as a drug addict, but the truth comes out that he involves himself in alcoholism to fight stress and depression resulting from neglection from the rest of the community. Similarly, the same happens to Saul many years later, where he hardly decides to quit the school and the hockey team to join drugs. This decision comes off after every situation on his side turns sour. At one, he loses the essential elements of the hockey game and heads to alcoholism to heal traumas he is facing as a young boy. However, he realizes addiction is not the best solution to the problems. Significantly, he vividly remembers the roots of the situation from back at school when he had to remain steadfast to survive several hardships. In fact, after reckoning about his past and the family behind him, Saul decides to quit addiction and decides to return to Kellys to live with his community.

Conclusion

Oppression and racial discrimination are viewed as the dark story of the past before civilization was actualized in all parts of the world. Richard Wagamese uses Saul as a character to portray how the indigenous inhabitants in Canada were humiliated in the hands of the white masters. The author describes how the different people had to adopt wild personalities to comply with the demands of the whites. Amazing, he also sets instances on how the non-whites were vigilant with their culture and how they behaved to show strength in fighting racial inferiority. Saul, the main character in the story, is characterized as being a talented hockey player who challenged his colleagues in the ice field. Hockey has been used as a symbol in Saul’s life to escape from pressure, violence, and racial discrimination in the school and the community. Additionally, hockey has been used to portray how Saul had to enhance peace and exercise freedom amid the perpetrators