Identity
“When your innocence is stripped from you, when your people are denigrated, when the family you came from is denounced and your tribal ways and rituals are pronounced backward, primitive, savage, you come to see yourself as less than human. That is hell on earth, that sense of unworthiness. That's what they inflicted on us.” (Wagamese pg 81) Residential schools tried to assimilate the children attending into being all the same. Their culture was ripped out of them and then they were told that they were wrong. They were wrong because they weren't white, they were wrong because they didn't all speak English, they were wrong because their hair was too long. Those things made them unsuitable to be human, unsuitable to be parents or even loved. Because of their appearance, they were unsuitable to be human. Who they were was not up to standards, regardless if they were the most caring person in the world, they were evil, mostly because of their skin colour. Throughout the whole novel Saul struggles to find himself, who he really is. He gets told to be exactly who he isn't and that brings upon great sadness and sorrow to his unpeaceful mind. Happiness comes from within yourself and if you get told that you are unworthy of life and you are a waste of space how are you going to be happy? Without your identity, without who you are how are you suppose to live? Only you can live your own life, so what happens when you get robbed of yourself? You break, which Saul did. Saul knew he needed to recover and find his real identity again so that his life could be just. He did just that, and that's what makes him so strong, was the courage, bravery, and fearlessness to fight for himself.