Questions:

- What are literary devices?

- Can we focus on some that aren’t standard?
- How does language help the novel (enhance it)?
- Why was the book written this way; is it different to the majority of novels?
- How did his writing techniques affect the audience?
- What would happen to literature if we didn’t have literary devices?
- What does the horse represent?
- Why is the book named indian horse?
- What do the places in the novel represent?

Important to note:
- The language that was used in the novel makes us assume that father L was a “good”
priest; or at least wasn’t taking advantage of the kids like the other adults at the school.
“You’re free now, Saul.” (117)
But that wasn’t the case, and it makes us feel worse because we assumed everything
was alright.
There was a false sense of security in place for us, like a trap. Most, if not all of us fell for
it. It was specifically written like that for a reason.

- The white man thinking it’s their world. And don’t we still think that?
“But there were moments when you’d catch another boy’s eye and know what you
were both thinking about. Everything was contained in that glance. All the hurt. All
the shame. All the rage. The white people thought it was their game. The white
people thought it was their world.” (136)
To the whites, Saul’s status as a native lessens him as a person
“I wanted to rise to new heights, be one of the glittering few. But they wouldn’t just
let me be a hockey player. I always had to be the indian.” (164)

- The way that Saul describes things in the book have an unintentional (or intentional?)
religious tone to them. He was talking about leaving after Ben got back, and he was
using terms that he wouldn’t have even known if he wasn’t put into a school.
“Our canoes skimmed along and as i watched the shoreline it seemed like land
itself was in motion. The rocks lay lodged like hymns in the breast of it, and the
trees bent upward in praised like crooked fingers. (18)
It’s almost like he’s confused. He speaks with ojibway metaphors (using nature) in times
of religion and in time of describing ojibway he uses catholic terms.
“Sister Ignacia...Her hands like dried birch bark.” (47)

- Saul’s name… It’s both a name he inherited from his great grandfather but it’s also a
good catholic name.. Reason for that?
 - He writes about the tragedies very vividly. About certain (mainly negative) experiences,
all the children dying from TB or other diseases, or being beaten and abused. He also
writes it with detachment, little emotion.
“Instead, she was gone. Frozen to death saving me…’’ (42)

“I read once that there are holes in the universe that swallow all light, all bodies.
St.Jerome’s took all the light from my life.” (43)

“I saw kids die from tuberculosis, influenza, pneumonia and broken hearts at
St.Jerome’s. I saw boys and girls die standing on their own two feet. I saw
runaways carried back, frozen solid as boards. I saw bodies hung from rafters on
thin ropes. I saw wrists slashed and the cascade of blood on the floor and, one
time, a young boy impaled on the tines of a pitchfork that he’d shoved through
himself. I watched a girl calmly fill the pockets of her apron with stones and walk
away across the field. She went to the creek and sat on the bottom and
drowned.” (55)

Literary devices relating to/connecting to the other books

- Red faced doctor (fifth business) and the red faced nun (indian horse)(45)
- Searching for saints (fifth business) and referring to S.I as looking saintly (indian horse)
(47)
- Saul refers to doing well in his sport by “Making magic out of mayhem” (130) which is
similar to Dunny making magic out of his life

- Religion? Catholic - fifth business

Catholic - indian horse

Literary devices in the dialogue:

“They pissed on us, Saul.” (135)
- this is a literal statement but also a metaphor for how the white people have always
treated the natives

“There was a spectre in a group. We could see the shadow of this dark being in the lines of our
mother’s face…. The spectre lived in other adults too, my father and my aunt and uncle. But it's
most chilling presence was in my mother.” (8-9)

“When they returned they brought the white man with them in brown bottles. Spirits, Naomi
called them. Bad spirits.” (9)

“I discovered that being someone you are not is often easier than living with the person you
are.” (181)

Simile:
“The tearing away from the bush and my people was like ripped flesh in my belly.”(48)

“The Moose were like soldiers arming themselves for battle, and I stood there holding my new
gear bag in my hand, unable to move at first. The feel of their energy in that tiny shack like
ordnance built to explode.” (102)

Metaphors:
- Black cloud/ black dog …. A way to describe depression
“It seemed like an instant, the world I had known was replaced by an ominous
black cloud.” (47)
“St.Germ’s scraped away at us, leaving holes in our beings.” (52)
- When the captives? Were brought to the residential school, they were scrubbed down
“It felt as though they were trying to remove our skin.” (44)
And weren’t they trying to remove more? They were removing heritage, background,
religion, identity…

- “So much life, so much desperation, so much energy.” (53)

Clearly talking about the fish but also maybe also unintentionally talking about how they
were before the school got them
“We lowered the sacks into the water and pulled them up dripping and filled with
fish. We watch the silvery, brown flash as they flopped out onto the bank, their
puckered mouths flapping like wet kisses from fat aunties, their tails flipping and
slapping against the ground. We pushed them back into the water and pulled out
another sack. We did that four times. The fourth time we stood quietly, each of us
lost in our own thoughts, as the fish struggled for air, for life, for freedom.” (53)

- These ghosts are metaphors for his bad memories. The trauma that he’s been through
“Sometimes ghosts linger. They hover in the furthest corners, and when you least
expect them to lurch out, bearing everything they brought to you when they were
alive. I didn’t want to haunted. I’d lived for far too long as it was.” (207)

- The school is a metaphor for hell

- The game is a metaphor for hope / or escape?

It was his escape, because when he had enough of the pain that this escape gave him,
he completely broke down and lost it.
“The players leaned forward on their sticks, eyes charcoal glints in the sunshine.
The excitement in the air was so thick you could smell it.” (57)

“The Moose were like soldiers arming themselves for battle, and I stood there
holding my new gear bag in my hand, unable to move at first. The feel of their
energy in that tiny shack like ordnance built to explode.” (102)
 “We were hockey gypsies, heading down another gravel road every weekend,
plowing into the heart of that magnificent northern landscape. (113)

Imagery:
- “The school itself was crumbling. Hollow. All the windows were smashed. The
ones on the top floor had been shot out, bullet holes splayed on the sills and
sashes. I could hear the flutter of birds within and the coo of the pigeons in the
eaves. Graffiti covered the walls with epithets and damnations. The leak of them
like blood. The scrunch of my steps echoed through the gaping windows.” (195)