Seite 319 [319]
THE SHIFTING SITES OF IDENTITY NEGOTIATION IN BOYDEN’S THREE Day ROAD
Elijah is more adaptive in manners, speaks the language, follows white
morality, and becomes an Indian hunter who takes killing too far. The general
story and fundamental paradox of the windigo killers seem to run in parallel,
especially when Elijah shows symptoms of going mad and taking pleasure in
killing** — even killing a mother and child with a sense of shame to follow.
Escaping prescribed identity formulations is an essential process that the
two protagonists experience in two different paths in life. Elijah escapes
one disadvantageous stigmatized image by becoming another, that of the
warrior Indian, and although this stigma alteration is societally successful
it has disastrous and tragic impact at the individual level. Meanwhile, Xavier
manages to escape the prototypical “dumb indjun” stereotype by becoming a
tactful scout and reliable comrade, a sensitive human being whose affection
for Elijah, Lisette, Niska and even unknown people in trouble underline the
general human features making one person truly good and another a villain,
as a victory over racial divides. Moreover, his unfaltering connection with his
tribal culture sustains a model in which a human being can take several social
roles, that of a nephew, a Cree youngster, a Canadian soldier at the European
frontline, friend, comrade and inheritor of a mythic grand narrative of tribal
wisdom and stories. In that sense, Three Day Road makes a statement about
the possibility of escaping fixed ethnic identity constructs by developing
individual concepts and constructs of one’s identity configuration.
The parallel process of a radical textual undoing of ethnic identity concepts
(including stereotypes) underlies the whole narrative. As mentioned earlier,
escaping prescribed identity formulations is an essential (unconscious) trait
in Three Day Road. Part of this is achieved through irony and playing out the
stereotype, mockery and other means of radical textual undoing of ethnic
identity concepts posed by the Colonial ideological agenda the protagonists
were born into. The Cree protagonists, especially Elijah, play out the Indian
stereotype, less in order to identify themselves among peers than for
achieving some minor benefits: “I am a Cree Indian from Moose Factory,
and I have come to kill Germans”®? “Better to let them know you're an angry
warrior than some fucking bush Indian”.*° They present a careful, wise and
sensitive distancing from the stereotype for their own security: they decide
not to capture goose, for surely Indians would be blamed for it*! along the
negative connotations of the stereotype. However, as for the positive features
attributed to Indians, since they are said to make fine scouts, there is a need
to recruit more,” and guys like Elijah are respected for killing, thus their
38 Ibid., 284.
% Ibid., 67.
0 Ibid., 68.
* Ibid., 93.
12 Ibid., 193.
* 317 +