Oldal 319 [319]
OCR
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 +
