Why Three Day Road?

WHY? WHY? WHY?

• To learn about Canadian Culture and History
• To learn about the Effects of War
• Importance of Individual Family and Culture
• Don't do Drugs!
• Author uses powerful symbols that allows you to foreshadow and connect the dots in the story
• Above All : it is an engaging novel that blows away your mind

The novel, "Three Day Road"  allows us, Canadians, to learn about and experience our culture and history without actually going through it.  This novel focuses mainly on World War I and the culture of Aboriginals.  Through Elijah, Xaiver, and Niska, we can better understand what these events and culture bring to a person.  The many deaths we see happen in this book especially teach us how war must be prevented and the many negative things it bring to the environment and people.

We Canadians may have created our current government and settled the land, however, we must not forget the Aboriginals who lived here first and their culture that we forcibly took from them.  Through this, we can also learn the importance of one's own culture and family.  During the war, we see Elijah, Grey Eyes and eventually Xavier all take morphine to escape from the reality of war.  We see the effects of morphine may allow one to feel "good", but instead takes common sense and reality from their brain.  This is easily applicable to our own life as we go through a period of exploring drugs as teenagers.

Lastly, Boyden uses multiple symbols that are both powerful in message and mind-shattering.  It especially allows us to foreshadow many events which makes the book that much more engaging to read.  For example, Elijah's last name Whiskeyjack, which is a bird that feed on corpses, foreshadows him turning cannibalistic.  The bear that Niska's family kills and eat is also another symbol that foreshadows Niska's powers to see in the future and her ability as an windigo (cannibal) killer.

Connections: The Novel and Us

With an appealing and stunning plot and a powerful theme, the novel “Three Day Road” not only impresses me with its nicely depicted bloody war scenes, but also connects to me. Being zealous about war history since grade two, I have read dozens of books about the two great wars, and I am extremely familiar with all the events that happened during these two wars. However, I have never had a chance to feel the inner sentiment of soldiers who fought in those wars. Thus, I am uncertain about the effect of war on soldiers and I am really curious about their emotional development. This is exactly what the novel “Three Day Road” brings to me. Through the breathtaking storytelling of Xavier, a Cree soldier who has fought for Canada during WWI, we can understand his attitude and his perception toward all the killing and moreover the war itself. This novel provides us, teenagers who have never experienced a real war, with an insightful understanding in war’s cruelty and humans’ fragility in front of it, which is shown on Elijah and Xavier. Elijah’s addiction to morphine, along with his desire to fit in the white community, has turned him into an insane murderer who savors killing. His habit of taking human scalps is an excellent proof of how greatly war can affect a person’s mental state. The novel helps people realize that war is the last thing that people should consider going into.

This amazing piece of literature put up by Joseph Boyden really has a huge influence on readers, since it conveys the cruelty of war and convinces us that peace is one thing that we must always pursue. Interestingly, many films and literal works also possess “anti-war” gists. Movies such as “Letters from Iwo Jima”, “Pearl Harbor”, and “Full Metal Jacket” plus books such as “War and Peace” and “A Bell for Adano” are excellent examples. One movie that I would like to further introduce is a famous American movie called “All Quiet on the Western Front”, which talks about a nineteen-year-old student named Paul Baumer joining the German army with his friends to fight against the French during the first World War. Paul eventually realizes that war is not as glorious and honorable as he thought. The story ends up with Paul and his classmates getting killed in the war. This movie shares many similarities with our novel “Three Day Road”. For instance, both stories are based on the First World War, and they both present WWI as a giant meat grinder that ends multitudinous human lives in a blink of time. They both demonstrate the change of humanity during a war. Most importantly, each of them tells us that fighting a war may bring you honor and glory, but for sure it will mutate humanity.

Lastly, the novel “Three day road” also connects to the world as it conveys two important messages through Xavier’s horrifying war experience and Aunt Niska’s past memories. Firstly, the marvellous and profound culture of the aboriginals should be protected, and their unique identities should be kept and be respected. This is actually an important topic nowadays since the Indian culture, being incessantly interfered with the white culture and ever-advancing technology, is gradually being lost. Secondly, the book warns everyone that war can remove things that are important to people and bring them infinite harm; therefore, war must be avoided.

Inspiration, Historical Influences and Sources of the Novel

In this novel, Joseph Boyden tells a grand story of the First World War and its experiences from an aboriginal’s perspective.  Joseph Boyden was mostly inspired by the Ojibwe hero, Francis Pegahmagabow who experienced the reality of World War I and succeeded as a renowned marksman.  His grandfather, father, and uncle, however, also fought in the war and sparked his initial interest in war.  Boyden’s father was an important man named by King George VI himself as the British Empire’s most highly decorated medical officer.  

Growing up as the son of such a man, this led him to be surrounded and infatuated by the myth and difficulties of war.  Boyden started to research more and more about the war itself, going through his father’s medals and newspaper articles as well as asking his family members for stories and experiences.  Having a mother who had to work and support a family after the death of his father also allowed Boyden to freely explore his interests at a young age.  He took this opportunity to visit the United States and travel around America to satisfy his thirst for information.  Boyden mostly received his sources from his personal experiences teaching in reserves including Mosse Factory, Fort Albany, Kashechewan and Attawapiskat as well as rummaging through his father’s artifacts and talking to many historians.  In writing this novel, Boyden hopes to be able to share the experiences of war through combining his family’s history and the myth of hero marksman, Francis Pegahmagabow. 

Biography of the Author

Joseph Boyden is thirty-eight, the third youngest of eleven children born into a strict Irish Catholic family.  He grew up with much history and myth swirling around him, stories of his father’s war exploits and his Uncle Erl’s ways.  During World War I, Boyden's father became a doctor and a war hero, thus bringing his family to the city.  His Uncle Erl lived in the bush, made his own clothing and travelled the world with only a few coins in his pockets.  

At sixteen, Joseph began travelling to the States on his own. He made close friendships with a group of misfits in South Carolina and Louisiana, resulting in his becoming of a roadie for their band.  This also allowed him to travel quite a lot, crisscrossing both the United States and Canada.  In order to feed his growing passion for the road, Joseph kept all kinds of odd jobs.  Eventually, he enrolled in the Masters of Fine Arts program at the University of New Orleans.  Here, he met his wife, Amanda who was a trapeze artist, contortionist and writer. He returned with his wife to Ontario and took a job as a professor of Aboriginal programs on James Bay in the far north. Joseph worked for two years up and down the reserves of the west coast of the bay teaching communications. 

Joseph also has split personality, a combination of his father and Uncle Erl. He believes that he has his father’s responsibility and his uncle’s belief that the world is to be traveled. Joseph writes and teaches writing. His heart is part Irish, part Ojibwa and he is Canadian in America. He lives history, and is inspired by legend. Through all these experiences, the Three Day Road came to life.

Brief Summary of the Novel

Three Day Road is set in the wilderness of northern Ontario and the battlefields in Europe. This is an unconventional tale of the First World War that follows the path of two Cree soldiers, Elijah and Xavier, in the trenches of France and Belgium.

The story is told by two voices of Native Canadians: Xavier, who returns from the war gravely wounded and addicted to morphine, and his aunt, Niska, who cares for him and tries to restore him.  Niska and Xavier begin a three-day canoe journey back to their home, travelling through the stark and stunning landscape of Northern Ontario. On their way home, Niska tells Xavier her stories amongst her kin while Xavier remembers his horrifying experiences back in the killing fields of Ypres and the Somme in flashbacks.

Xavier and Elijah had joined up at the war. Once they arrived at the Front line, their native hunting skills impressed everyone, allowing both of them to become excellent snipers. After experiencing many unexpected hardships, both Xavier and Elijah have dramatic changes in their behaviors and personalities, both mentally and physically.

Told with unblinking focus, Three day Road is a stunning tale of brutality, survival and rebirth that marks the arrival of an exceptional new talent.