His family and friends are often in emotional turmoil due to this cultural gap. He changes often throughout the story, changes brought on by the aforementioned conflict. Saul Indian Horse, the protagonist, is impacted by the relationship between these two worlds. The heavy influence of disparity between Two Worlds drives the story, always present in Virgil’s explanation of racism and xenophobia is a key moment in the story, highlighting the injustice faced by Indigenous people. Virgil explains that the team ‘crossed a line’ by being in the same restaurant as white people saying that ‘The white people figure they got the right to make the Moose pay for it.” After Saul’s hockey team (the Moose) is assaulted behind a bar and urinated on, he talks with a team member (Virgil Kelly) about why they were attacked.

This conflict is further emphasized with the way that Saul and several side characters (also Native) are attacked for their race later on in the story. Jerome’s we work to remove the Indian from our children so that the blessings of the Lord may be evidenced upon them.” Sister Ignacia (a nun from the residential school) explicitly explains that the Indigenous culture was to be eliminated. A testament to this would be the residential schools that the Ojibway children are forced to attend. More specifically, the conflict between these two worlds is an effort from one world to eradicate and remove another, and the effects of this shape the plot of the story. To begin, the disagreement between the two worlds is one of the main causes of conflict in the novel.

Indian horse the book