20/S1 HMRT 2023 A - Literature and human rights

To be completely honest, after finishing the novel, I felt extremely empty and depressed for Saul's story. The first few chapters discuss how his parents are not even really parents to him, they are so inverted upon themselves and driven to drink due to their experiences in Residential Schools. Further, after Saul's brother died, I found it so completely heart wrenching when the grandmother wanted to bury him in all the death rites given to an Indigenous Ojibway, on the top of the mountain with his feet pointed east, however Saul's mother called the grandmother a heathen for this. The residential school had erased her culture and identity so much so that she regarded her mother in-law as a less than human, savage Indian. The mother goes on to state that her son needs to be buried with help from a Priest and in the name of god.

In analyzing that specific event, I would say that Residential School's quite literally took everything from Saul. They took his brother away only for him to return with TB and die, they turned his parents into dysfunctional beings who couldn't really be parents, they caused Saul's mother to decide that his brother needed a priest which made his parents leave God's lake, and that decision ultimately lead to the death of his closest ally, his grandmother, when she froze to death after his parents never returned.

I have worried and thought a lot about the reasons for Sauls missing parents. Did they die on their travels to or from the priest and Saul's brothers burial? Did they decide that abandoning Saul and his grandmother was in their best interest? Or were they so consumed with alcoholism and dysfunction from the residential school system and systemic, settler colonial trauma that they wandered to the nearest tavern and drank themselves into a stupor that they could never return from? If they did survive, did they ever try to find Saul? Did they return to God's Lake? Did they hear about his hockey triumphs? I wonder about this a lot as the book articulated how many children at residential schools had their names changed but Saul's was already "Christian" enough and therefore it stayed the same. It would probably have been easy to find Saul if his parents truly wanted to.

This analysis leads me to believe that they gave up and died. Whether literally or figuratively Sauls parents died for real or their souls simply died inside their living bodies and they decided to move on from their son. Either way this was caused by the harsh realities they faced in residential schools and the harsh quality of life that the government afforded to them. Either way, I would say that Saul's greatest familial loss was not that of his already absent parents, but of his grandmother. His grandmother showed true love for Saul as she kept him alive during their trek through the harsh winter in hopes of reaching a different village. She showed just how great of lengths a person will go to in order to protect their own flesh and blood. The grandmother sparks so much empathy within me, she is definitely one of the strongest characters articulated. I can't imagine how she must have felt when Saul's parents did not return. The Residential school took her son away from her and changed him into something unrecognizable, her daughter-in-law pays her so much disrespect its unbelievable, and now she's left with her grandson to take care of in the harshest climate ever. Some might say she failed by dying, but I would say she triumphed. She lost her own life in order to spare Saul's from the freezing cold of winter. That is true bravery and courage.

Something that struck me most about Saul's family relationship was his mother's Western Christianity, and how at odds it was with the traditional rituals of burial. His grandmother is also very spiritual, she always speaks of the Creator and her family's destiny, but Saul's parents no longer took this spirituality seriously. On top of the distress of losing his brother, Saul's family ultimately disintegrates as a result. His parents go off to find a priest, and as a result, this indirectly led to the death of his grandmother. As easy as it is to grow angry at Saul's parents for abandoning them, can we really cast all the blame upon them? The residential school system clearly has the ability to completely drain the humanity out of someone. We first saw this with Saul's brother, then later, when he gets taken away to the school, there is a slew of children who are almost literally broken: they harm themselves, they lose their language and culture, they are given new names, and their human dignity is entirely stripped away. The skeptic in me wonders if Saul's brother was purposely sent home with TB to traumatize the family, or in an attempt to infect them as well.

This clash between the residential school system and family is depicted poignantly through the boy that Saul arrives at the school with. The boy has his name stripped away from him, then the nuns tell him that he no longer has a biological father, and the only father he is to speak of is God. Stripping away the family seems to be the primary mechanism used by the priests and nuns to "civilize" the children. Saul is able to find his way to a new family, but most of the children were not that lucky.

The strength and leadership of the grandmother, Naomi, is something I truly admired in the novel. Naomi is a respected figure, we see a lot of emphasis on respect for elders, especially the elder women of the family as they had the responsibility to teach and pass on traditions to the younger generations. Naomi is described as the leader of the family, and not Saul’s father – different from what we see in other cultures where men are the leaders of the family. Naomi is introduced to us on page 8 when Saul says, “She was the matriarch of the small band of people I was born to.” As the elder, she had witnessed a lot of things including seeing the now adults of their camp taken when they were children and also saw them return "bearing a sorrow that could not be reached" p.g 9. Naomi is the spiritual leader of the family and in the novel we see how she leads the family to search for food and safety, especially when Benjamin had returned, as she feared that “the white man” would come find him. She believed in the Ojibway and tried to pass on the traditions to her children and grandchildren.

I think Naomi can be seen as the key maternal figure in Saul’s life, this is evident when Saul’s parents leave and never come back. I think she had long assumed the maternal role even when Saul’s mother was alive when she had been grieving the loss of Rachel and Benjamin. Naomi raised Saul when his parents had resulted to alcohol (spirits) and had “died” inside. Naomi took care of Saul by telling him stories, keeping him warm and constantly reassuring him that everything is going to be all right, even when she knew things might never be the same again. “As they eased the canoes out into the shallows, my grandmother pulled me close to her and put a hand on my head” p.g 33. Here it shows her kind nature and strength having lost two grandchildren and now possibly her children as well. I think deep down, as she watched them leave with Benjamin’s body, she knew they would not return but she had to stay strong for Saul. Her death was really heartbreaking as she died doing what she had been doing for all his life, protecting Saul. Her strong relationship with Saul is further portrayed as though without Naomi, Saul did not have protection. We see this soon after Naomi’s death, it is when Saul is taken to St. Jerome’s – the very thing she had tried to protect him from.

Saul's family and where he comes from is a very important part of the story-especially when we look at Saul's life later on. Looking at Saul's parents it is clear to see how intergenerational traumas have affected the family-both his mom and dad are residential school survivors and we can see how the effects of that are passed down to the children. A few different things stuck out to be in regards to his mom and dad...
1. Saul talks about how he never felt connected with his parents-both of whom turned to alcohol to cope with their feelings and the loss of two of their children. They were both residential school survivors, so they knew first-hand what was in store for their children. Even though Saul felt afraid of them at times, I believe that the two did the best that they could with what they had.
2. Another part of the book that stuck out is after Ben's passing. Mom and dad are adamant that Ben receive a proper Christian burial-even though Naomi argues against it, stating that they have to follow the traditional Ojibway way. As Paytra stated in her passage, we can see how the residential school had erased Saul's parents culture and identity. One interesting thing that I noticed later on is that both Saul and his siblings have Zhaunagush (white-man) names. This made me wonder if his parents purposely chose those names because they sounded like 'good Christian names' and because their own names had been changed once they entered the schools.

I feel like the reason that they never came back for Saul is because they were too busy trying to cope with everything that had happened-their time in residential school, the loss of their two other children, their struggles with alcohol; so they left Saul with Naomi so that he would be safe. There would have been no way for them to predict what would eventually happen, and at the time, leaving Saul with his grandmother was the best way to protect him and keep him safe.

The impact that residential schools implemented on Saul's family, is something that no one should ever have to face. Slowly throughout the beginning chapters of the book, we see how residential school have taken away so much from Saul's mother and continue to take from her. Not only does she have to live with the trauma of the schools that turned her into an alcoholic, but she also faces the lost of her son after he escapes from the school. Saul's mother is never really shown as a care taker to Saul, more as just a figure who is there. Finally Saul truly loses his parents as they never return from taking his brother to a priest after his passing. Saul's grandmother was always there to take care of him, but now she was all he had left of his family. When she dies trying to get Saul to safety, Saul has finally lost everything. I find this to be one of the most tragic turning points for Saul in the book. We learn at the end of the book that the reason Saul felt so okay with the abuse from father Gaston, was because it made him feel loved, it reminded him of his family. He was okay with being kissed because it reminded him of his grandmother. This breaks my heart, to know that in order to fill the void of the family he has lost, he accepts the abuse, as a form of love. Residential schools took everything from Saul, and caused him a life of pain. This book was extremely difficult to read, but so important to understand the impacts that indigenous people faced and still face.

The whole time I was reading the early chapters of the book, I was making mental notes of all the ways in which residential schools impacted Saul’s family. For one it impacted their way of living; they constantly had to be living in fear and ready to run when the time came. Even though they had not done anything criminal in action, they became custom to running like a fugitive. Hiding to protect Saul and his brother from being taken to the residential school made a quality life difficult to obtain, but it was better than the alternative.
The way in which Saul and his family lived was affected by residential schools, but residential schools targeted the people in his family to a much greater extent. First, they took his parents, more specifically his mother. His parents became dependent on alcohol to fill the voids that residential schools created. Trauma from residential schools is very present in Saul's mother. Saul often explains his mother as not being fully present and her actions demonstrate the internal trauma the school caused. The school also took all of her children, Saul and his brother Benjamin and sister Rachel. When his brother returned the physical impacts of the school are highlighted in comparison to the internal ones demonstrated by their mother. Benjamin returned malnourished and thin, sick with TB that would ultimately lead to his death. Finally, before taking Saul they took his grandmother. I think that his grandmother dying right before Saul is taken represents the school taking the last person in his family still living an Ojibway life. After the death of Benjamin prior to Saul’s parents leaving, Naomi and Saul's mother argue over the proper way to put Benjamin to rest, their grandmother wanting to lay him to rest in the traditional way with his feet pointing east whereas his mother wanted to follow the procedure of the church. This isn’t the first time that the two had conflict over Saul’s mother talking about the church. I think Saul’s grandmother’s death symbolizes the main goal of residential schools, to end indigenous culture and convert them to the church. She died trying to protect Saul from the same fates of his family. She was the last person in his family who was continuing Ojibway traditions and ways of living and when she died so did Saul’s connection within his family to his Ojibway roots.

It is hard to follow the childhood of Saul because the only consistency seems to be his instability. Despite her best efforts, Saul’s grandmother couldn’t help him evade residential schools. Saul’s siblings were picked off all but promising he was next, and his parents abandoned him in what became the last piece of the puzzle that sent him off to residential school.

I think the most interesting relationship is that which Saul shares with his Grandmother. She is a vital presence to Saul’s ancestry. We see this when Saul’s grandmother is the only one who attempts to nurture his visions and encourage Saul to embrace his heritage. Despite the advantage of knowing “Zhaunagush”, I think the persistence Saul’s grandmother possessed towards his heritage, in making sure Saul knew where he came from, was an important element in Saul going through the residential school system.