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WENJACK (2016) by Joseph Boyden
By Simon Courchesne, Kanwal Idrees, Doriana Saliba, Audréanne Savard & Maria Sol Guede
Introduction
Wenjack
by Joseph Boyden, 2016
Joseph Boyden
The Author
- Canadian Novelist
- Has won multiple international awards
- Published in more than 20 languages
- Is known for writing about First Nations culture
1
Residential Schools
- Residential schools were government-sponsored religious schools established to assimilate Indigenous children into Euro-Canadian culture.
- Indian residential schools operated in Canada between the 1870s and the 1990s. The last Indian residential school closed in 1996.
Historical Context
2
Residential Schools (2)
and...
- In some cases, children were heavily beaten, chained or confined. Some of the staff were sexual predators, and many students were sexually abused.
- Underfed and malnourished, the students were particularly vulnerable to diseases such as tuberculosis and influenza.
- (Miller,2018 )
Plot
Wenjack
- Chanie, 11 years old, a residential school student, escapes with two other aboriginal boys.
- Punished, malnourished, bad hygiene
- Seeking for comfort/familiarity
- Being followed by manitous
- Unfortunate ending
3
The author uses setting and symbolism in order to demonstrate the theme of loneliness.
Thesis
Why we chose Loneliness?
Analyzed literary devices:
- Setting
- Symbolism
There are 2 main symbols in Wenjack: Chanie's chest & the map
Symbolism
Chanie's Chest
1
Chanie's Chest
“Something hurt him bad. Ever bad they hurt him. So bad that it is stuck inside him and he’s so scared of it but more scared to let it out”.
“get real cold tonight and wait for light but don’t stop running to where they run” (13), Chanie’s “inside chest begins to stop hurting as bad”.
“Don’t hurt, chest”.
Chanie's Chest
2
Chanie's Chest (2)
“He will follow his friends and their uncle by land to the camp and make himself useful so that the uncle will like him. And when Chanie’s chest has healed some and he has earned some food to take, he will then begin the long walk down the tracks to home”.
"He'd been opened by a white doctor's scalpel as a child but when the brothers asked him why, he claimed not to know or even not to exactly remember how old he was when the scar was made".
The Map
3
The Map
Symbolizes his hope and confidence to get out of loneliness
“He hoped this might serve as a guide to his home and carefully folded it and put it in his thin jacket’s pocket”.
“The wind shakes it and it almost sounds like the map wants to talk to me. I think I have it turned the right way".
The Map
4
The Map
"I’ve watched older people study maps and I do what I remember them doing, running my finger along what must be the railroad tracks ... then tapping my finger on my lips to see if this will help the map speak to me”.
Frustrated when he loses the map
“Ever stupid, me! Ever stupid! Why didn’t I roll it up in the small glass jar with the matches? I reach my hand in my pocket and squish the map with my fist”.
Settings
Settings
The Forest
''I walk up on the little rock hill that holds the long straight lines. Ever long when I look each way. Ever long.'' (63)
''Dark will come fast now and so I look for places to sleep as I leap from wood to wood, the smell of it making me dream hot summer and playing with my two nimiseyag near the tracks and the big shining water where we live.'' (66)
Forest
1
Forest
''The trees are bigger here. The ground leans harder. I’m closer now to water. I can no longer run, me, but walk fast instead and let the slow hill carry my body." (28)
"Dark will come fast now and so I look for places to sleep as I leap from wood to wood, the smell of it making me dream hot summer and playing with my two nimiseyag near the tracks and the big shining water where we live. " (65)
2
Residential School
Residential Schools
- "...[a]nd down some stairs and to the dark basement that scares us all to dying" (71)
- "he has a room in the basement that scares the life from us" (1)
3
Residential School
Residential Schools
- "They won't find me. I won't let them. I won't go back to that place." (64)
- "The wind blows cold from my arm where the school lives when I turn that way. It makes me hold my skinny jacket closer. When I look the way my nindede and my nimaamaa and my two nimiseyag live, where they wait for me..." (64)
4
Conclusion
Wenjack by Boyden, 2016
Conclusion
To conclude...
- Symbols: Chest & Map
- Setting: Residential Schools & Forest
Thank you!