Synthesis essays Gr.10
Hooks
Using Strength and Staying True to Culture
If someone has faced abuse for years as a child, how does one recover after such trauma? Well that’s exactly what Saul and Betsy had to do. Indian Horse by Richard Waganese and Sugar Falls by David Robertson are stories around the First Nations culture and the cruel, appalling residential schools stripping children of their culture and identity. After facing so much pain and suffering how does one recover after facing different forms of abuse?
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Many people discuss the horrors that happened at residential schools but what is important and not always considered is the long-lasting effects residential schools have on the people forced to be there.
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History can leave scars on anybody and anything. It can be on land, on people, or on entire families and communities. But what specific effects does racism and discrimination have on a person?
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Thesis and Conclusions
Main characters of both stories Sugar Falls and Indian Horse endure loneliness, sexual and mental abuses throughout their time in the Residential School. Betsy from Sugar Falls builds a stronger connection to her aboriginal culture whereas Saul from Indian Horse decides to handle his traumatic memories through drinking. Ultimately, both authors try to advocate that people have different methods of coping hardship. Therefore, one cannot judge others’ ways of managing hardship especially without understanding their history.
(conclusion)
All in all, both Saul and Betsy endure hardships such as loneliness, mental and sexual abuse during their childhood and have different ways of coping with their painful memories. Saul and Betsy are both neglected by their parents and experience extreme stress through sexual abuse. Betsy decides to step up and become stronger, but Saul decides(?) to rely on alcohol. People have different methods of battling stress. Some are positive like Betsy who used her challenge to become more powerful, while some decide to rely on alcohol or drugs to cope their hardships. Instead of judging others who decide to depend on harmful methods to deal with hardship, one should reach out to them and help them find hope.
Full Intro and Conclusion
People will often take broken or mentally ill people for granted, but looking at how they got there gives us a better understanding of how everyday citizens become but a shell of their former selves. These sources explore (what) the effects of residential schools on the main characters of Indian Horse and Sugar Falls. Indian Horse is a Bildungsroman novel written by first nations author Richard Wagamese that focuses on the life of Saul, the protagonist, and his life as an Ojibway boy going through residential schools. The story takes place during the 1960s in Ontario. Similarly, the protagonist of Sugar Falls, Betty, deals with the residential school experience during the mid-twentieth century in Ontario. Sugar Falls is a graphic novel written by David Robertson and illustrated by A. Scott Henderson. The residential school system, was a program introduced by the Canadian government to “take the Indian out of the Indian” and was an act of cultural genocide to assimilate and indoctrinate the first nations people. The residential schools existed across Canada by and large during the 1880s-1960s with the last one closing in 1986 and the Indian Act in 1920 marking the mandatory attendance for all aboriginal children. Throughout both Sugar Falls and Indian Horse, the protagonists face abuse in the form of residential schools, although the way that they differ is in what they take forward. For Saul, he takes the loss of his innocence to heart as he canonizes Father Leboutillier to hide from the truth. Comparatively, Betty embraces the truth and looks forward with recognition. Ultimately, both characters teach and give back to the community by exploring their culture through language and hockey respectively.
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In conclusion, both Betty and Saul overcame the effects of residential schools by teaching the next generation their culture and making sure they don’t face racism. But while Saul attempts to escape his sexual abuse through hockey Betty accepts the abuse and tries to learn from it and accept it as a part of who she is. Through multiple examples, Saul goes from a hockey-loving kid to a hopeless drunk, and Betty changes her name for her murdered friend and teaches Daniel how to use history. In the end, they both return to their cultural and historical roots, Betty by teaching Ojibway and Saul through teaching hockey. Ultimately, the protagonists overcome hardship not by avoiding their demons but accepting and moving on.
Evidence and Quotes
The two main ways Saul copes with hardship is through his love of hockey and his attachment to family. When Saul is focusing on hockey he distracts himself from the realities of the Residential School. Initially, Saul survives by just quietly existing at the school. Saul says, “That’s how I survived. Alone. I ached in solitude. What I let them see was a quiet, withdrawn boy, void of feeling” (Wagamese, 55). Then Saul begins helping to maintain the rink for the older hockey players before he is old enough to play. Saul experiences joy from secretly practicing his hockey skills after he is done maintaining the rink. Saul often practices in the dormitory at night: “I’d stand there, arms held high in triumph, and I would not feel lonely or afraid, deserted or abandoned, but connected to something far bigger than myself” (Wagamese, 62). Saul eventually gets to play on a Midget town hockey team and continues to focus on hockey rather than the Residential School. Saul says, “In the spirit of hockey I believed I had found community, a shelter and a haven from everything bleak and ugly in the world” (Wagamese, 90). Saul’s Involvement in hockey gives him the opportunity to be adopted into the Kelly family. Saul says, “Fred and Martha Kelly were good to me” (Wagamese, 114). Saul also becomes close to their son Virgil. The relationships that Saul develops with the Kelly family also help him cope with his hardship. At the end of Indian Horse, Saul also uses his birth family as a source of strength to deal with his hardships. Saul has a vision of his grandfather saying, “You’ve come to learn to carry this place within you. This place of beginnings and endings” (Wagamese, 205). The grandfather, Shabogeesick, is saying that Saul has learned to appreciate and acknowledge his native heritage. Ultimately, Saul’s enthusiastic passion for hockey as well as his relationships with his two families help him cope with hardship.
One more conclusion that shows the “so what”
Nonetheless, these two stories have the same goal. To educate people on the horrors that has happened in Canada. They teach us the important lessons of staying strong, and never forgetting where you came from. Saul and Betsy both had different struggles and evolvements. (I would summarize the struggles here)But despite their differences, they both strived for the same goal, to stay alive…physically and emotionally.