(Strength Found In Relationships And Hockey Can Help Overcome Hardship)

How does one cope with hardship that develops within Residential Schools?  Could something as simple as making relationships be the answer?  The Residential School experience for both protagonists in the Indian Horse and the Sugar Falls stories is set in Ontario, Canada in the sixties.  Saul lives in Ontario.  In both Indian Horse, by Richard Wagamese, and Sugar Falls, by David Robertson, the main characters find positive ways to cope with their hardship when they are in the Residential Schools.  In Indian Horse the main character, Saul, copes with hardship, by playing hockey with new friends and family.  In Sugar Falls, the main character, Betty, copes with hardship by making new friends and remembering her father’s words about family and tradition.  These books show how one can persevere in times of hardship.

The main way Saul copes with hardship is through his love of hockey and 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  What I let them see was a quiet, withdrawn boy, void of feeling” (Wagamese, 55).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.

The main way Betty copes with her hardship is through the relationships she develops while at the Residential School. Betty meets a friend, Flora, who she shares her feelings with about the Residential School. Both girls are living the same experiences. Betty says, “Flora told me once how she got through the abuse… When it was my turn, I did the same” (Robertson, 27). Having a friend helps Betty cope with the hardship of the Residential School. Betty works hard at her school work so she will be left alone. Betty says, “I vowed to become excellent at my penmanship, to never give them a reason to hit me again” (Robertson, 37). Betty also copes with her hardship by remembering the teachings of her father. Her father tells Betty: “Relationships.  That’s where we find our strength as people” (Robertson, 12). Betty says, “He told me to hold onto those relationships as tight as I could.  He said that when the darkness came, I was to use them as a light” (Robertson, 13). In the end, relationships with family and friends give Betty the strength to persevere through her suffering.

In conclusion, In both Indian Horse, by Richard Wagamese, and Sugar Falls, by David Robertson, the main characters develop valuable strategies to deal with their horrific experiences  at Residential School. Both Saul and Betty use their relationships with their families and/or friends to ignore the abuses and the mistreatment from the workers at the Residential School.  Both characters try to fit in with residential school life to try to cope with their hardships.  The difference between the two pieces of literature is that Saul has a passion for hockey that creates a major distraction against his hardships and Betty has no significant interests to distract her. Indian Horse and Sugar Falls both examine the qualities needed to persevere through extreme hardship. In the world, today people need to figure out how to deal with conflict and hardship in their everyday lives.  Saul and Betty show the reader how they decided to deal with their grief.

Two things I did well: 

I thought I did well on finding my quotes, and I also thought I did well on my grammar and punctuation.

Two things I want to improve for next time:

Two things I want to improve for next time are my hook and my introduction/conclusion.