Mother, Father, sister or brother? Are those the limits to family? Do those simple words encompass all the feelings and emotions drawn forth from our minds when someone mentions family? Indian Horse, written by Richard Wagamese, deals with family in a strong and emotional way. There is no simple way to describe a family. Where can one even start? Sure, everyone knows that by blood your parents and siblings, aunts, uncles and grandparents are all “Family” but is that all? Even by the strict definition of blood relations your family is hard to describe. Parents and grandparents are obviously blood related, but at the same time what if they are married in after you are born? That new man, married to your mother, is he your father? By blood maybe
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Is that justified? Can we isolate someone from the right to a family simply because the people they live with are not directly related by blood? Family is not limited by blood relations. Your family is your own and is not limited by any social or official definitions of the word. Family are those who guide and teach us, those who we can share our happiness with and those who we turn to in times of weakness or need without fear of rejection or mistreatment. Those people, and no one else, are who fit the description of Family.
Family shapes us, it guides us and drives us, within a family is where we start, and also where we will end. Saul’s life is shaped dramatically by his family, not just his biological family, but those who he lived with and grew up with, those people whom he strove for freedom with. Chapter three of Indian Horse opens with “All that I knew of Indian died in the winter of 1961, when I was eight years old.”Saul says this in reference to the ending of his happy bush life. His family had lost a daughter already, his older sister whom he never met, and so they protected Saul and his brother Benjamin every way they could, doing everything from taking them out hunting or just hiding the kids on a trap line so as to …show more content…
Bob Ross once said “Gotta have a little sadness once in a while so you know when the good times come. I’m waiting on the good times now” A powerful quote that describes Saul’s life fairly well because his life has gone through bad times, some worse than others, only to be picked up again by hockey. Saul grew beyond his peers in skill and it was then that a man named Fred Kelly came by to write a new Chapter in the family life of Saul Indian Horse. Saul has lost his family twice now, once in the bush when his biological family fell out of his life through death or despair, and once when he left St. Gerome’s with Fred Kelly in search of a new frontier of hockey to concur, in search of a better life. Saul goes to the Kelly family home and meets the new people whom he will be spending his life with. He is thrust into a family environment again where everyone around him was either born together, or banded together through the hockey team called The Moose. Virgil, the captain of the Moose and son of Fred Kelly, gives Saul advice that must seem awfully reminiscent to his beginnings on the St. Gerome’s team. “The guys?” Virgil says, “They’re not going to take to you right away.” As a response to Saul’s inquiry of why, Virgil says “You’re not from here and you’re taking a spot away from someone else.” Much like when Saul joined the team at St. Gerome’s he is the runt, a runt who is replacing someone else and
Is that justified? Can we isolate someone from the right to a family simply because the people they live with are not directly related by blood? Family is not limited by blood relations. Your family is your own and is not limited by any social or official definitions of the word. Family are those who guide and teach us, those who we can share our happiness with and those who we turn to in times of weakness or need without fear of rejection or mistreatment. Those people, and no one else, are who fit the description of Family.
Family shapes us, it guides us and drives us, within a family is where we start, and also where we will end. Saul’s life is shaped dramatically by his family, not just his biological family, but those who he lived with and grew up with, those people whom he strove for freedom with. Chapter three of Indian Horse opens with “All that I knew of Indian died in the winter of 1961, when I was eight years old.”Saul says this in reference to the ending of his happy bush life. His family had lost a daughter already, his older sister whom he never met, and so they protected Saul and his brother Benjamin every way they could, doing everything from taking them out hunting or just hiding the kids on a trap line so as to …show more content…
Bob Ross once said “Gotta have a little sadness once in a while so you know when the good times come. I’m waiting on the good times now” A powerful quote that describes Saul’s life fairly well because his life has gone through bad times, some worse than others, only to be picked up again by hockey. Saul grew beyond his peers in skill and it was then that a man named Fred Kelly came by to write a new Chapter in the family life of Saul Indian Horse. Saul has lost his family twice now, once in the bush when his biological family fell out of his life through death or despair, and once when he left St. Gerome’s with Fred Kelly in search of a new frontier of hockey to concur, in search of a better life. Saul goes to the Kelly family home and meets the new people whom he will be spending his life with. He is thrust into a family environment again where everyone around him was either born together, or banded together through the hockey team called The Moose. Virgil, the captain of the Moose and son of Fred Kelly, gives Saul advice that must seem awfully reminiscent to his beginnings on the St. Gerome’s team. “The guys?” Virgil says, “They’re not going to take to you right away.” As a response to Saul’s inquiry of why, Virgil says “You’re not from here and you’re taking a spot away from someone else.” Much like when Saul joined the team at St. Gerome’s he is the runt, a runt who is replacing someone else and