Throughout both classic and contemporary literature authors explore the human condition in many different ways. In Indian Horse Saul faces hardship within many aspects of his life. Prejudice and abuse seem to follow him around everywhere. Saul tries to keep it all to himself because of the abandonment from his parents and betrayal at the hands of Father Leboutillier. Every time that Saul reaches contentment everything seems to burst at the seams. That’s why even after his soul-searching journey Saul realizes that he needs to return to the only home he has left. Comparatively, in “The Watch”, being a short story but a snippet of the protagonist’s life is shown. When we reach him, he has already been torn apart by the Holocaust. In this way, we see a broken man who barely has the strength to return to his home-town. Because, without everything that made it be, he hardly recognizes it. Indian Horse teaches us that abandoning our past selves never works if we want to move on. In Indian Horse no matter how far Saul strays from his home, culture, and land he will always be Ojibway. That is why, in the end, the government could never fully destroy first nations culture because as Betty from “Sugar Falls” teaches us, she lives inside everyone who hears our story. These three sources together are a clear example of resisting hardship. No matter how much people try to beat into us the idea that we are lesser, we will always fight back and show that we are all equal. Even if it may take some time for our usurpers to realize it. That is what we can learn from both history and literature, fiction and non-fiction, stories and the truth.
