Blog #5 Interesting Plot?

The plot in Three Day Road seemed to move along well except its a bit hard to follow, because of all the flashbacks from the war, Niska's past, and Xavier's past with Elijah. The plot though revolves around Xavier coming back from the war and his aunt Niska meeting him at the train station thinking she was meeting Elijah as she was told that Xavier had died.

Source: http://images.ourontario.ca

Then Niska see's Xavier, and he is in really bad shape, so she starts a long trip to their home by canoe with Xavier, and as this is happening a lot of flashbacks happen which is most of the story. The main theme of the story would be how the wemistikoshiw (white people) affected their culture, and ultimately corrupted Elijah. It's displayed that Elijah, because of being raised by nuns most of his life gave him the ability to speak good English, and also in turn having a better connection with the wemistikoshiw more than Xavier ever could. Morphine a medicine the wemistikoshiw use, Elijah started using it, and you could really see the effect it had on him and how it changed him over time.

Source: genious.com

The morphine got ever more addicting for Elijah, and it slowly changed him and his body into the brutal killing machine with no morals we see at the end of the book. Elijah's death was the climax of the book although this didn't surprise me as the author Boyden was dropping hints one of the big ones being Niska's letter saying "Do what you have too". I feel this was an appropriate climax there was just no way that Elijah could come back from what he's done, and be fine without it being really hard to believe as a reader. Niska being a Windigo killer comes to our attention about midway through the book, and Xavier realizes he also is a Windigo killer like his aunt at the end of the book which is an important part of explaining why Elijah was killed. Boyden has the plot of this book entertaining if you don't mind all the violence with the war and Windigo's, and if not it's still interesting with a lot to learn about Aboriginal culture.