One Day on the River Essay

Elijah has grander and more on the hook(predicate) dreams. Having been largely acculturated by a residential school upbringing to begin with escaping into the forest to live with Xavier and Niska, he has acquired the dubious skills of public relations and boastfulness as much as the crafts of the hunter. His English, learned from the nuns, is impeccable, and he makes his mark among the workforce in the trenches as much by the flash of his storytelling as by his murderous midnight prowls in no mans land.Gradually Elijah becomes detain by two great obsessions a need for morphine, whose use is rampant(ip) up and fling off the lines, and an insatiable hunger for killing. Some French soldiers nominate that if he really wants to gain respect for all his kills, he should scalp his victims as evidence. He decides to do so, much to Xaviers disgust.In contrast to the exploits of Xavier and Elijah, Boyden interweaves the story of Niska, told as she paddles her wounded nephew back home af ter the war is over. Niska is part of the sad but admirable remnant of traditional natives who refused to bring down the reserves in the 19th century, choosing instead to live by their wits and traditional teachings in the woods.Subject to what modern medicine would call epileptic seizures, Niska is deemed by her tribe to be possessed of inherited her fathers skills as a shaman and a windigo-killer. Since windigos manifest themselves in humans who have practiced cannibalism, getting rid of them involves what discolor society would call murder, and so Niskas father was executed as a murderer by the white courts. The constant crossing of the moral lines between the worldviews of native and white society is one of the many strengths of this fascinating novel.At one point, hunkered down in his snipers nest, Xavier indulges himself (and the reader) in a contemplation on the derive three, which he sees as an obsession of his white commanders. Theres the effort line, the support lin e, and the reserve line, for starters. Theres the infantry, the cavalry, and the artillery. Off the battlefield, theres food, then rest, then women. In church, theres the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. not to mention the superstition about lighting three cigarettes with one match, a prime metaphor for courting danger in the Great War. unless then Xavier suddenly remembers Niskas traditional teaching, that those who are dying essential walk the three-day road to death, and he wonders if we share something, some magic. Maybe it go away help me get through all this.The real war hero, Peggy, makes a brief cameo appearance in the novel, which may not have been a wise choice on the authors part. The characters of Xavier and Niska and, to a passably lesser extent, Elijah are full to the brim with life theyre rather satisfying and believable as they are, and need no further emboss of authentication.