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Norval Morrisseau
Christian Morrisseau is the son of famed Ojibwe painter Norval Morrisseau and the father of Kyle Morrisseau, who was found dead in a Thunder Bay, Ontario river in 2008. In response to the results of the inquest into the deaths of Kyle and six other Indigenous youths, Christian created the massive painting Seven Fallen Feathers that gave Tanya Talaga’s book its title.
Christian Morrisseau Quotes in Seven Fallen Feathers
The Seven Fallen Feathers quotes below are all either spoken by Christian Morrisseau or refer to Christian Morrisseau. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
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Chapter 10: Seven Fallen Feathers Quotes
[Christian] called the painting Seven Fallen Feathers. Each feather represents one of the seven dead students. Morrisseau was tired of hearing them being called that, "Seven dead students." People always referred to the kids like that. "The seven dead." As if they weren't anything else in life.
They had their own spirits. They were their own people.
Morrisseau couldn’t stand hearing his son Kyle being called "one of the seven dead students" anymore, not by the news media, not by the lawyers, not by the people who meant well but found it easier to lump them all together as one.
Kyle was a fallen feather. They all were.
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Get the entire Seven Fallen Feathers LitChart as a printable PDF.
"My students can't get enough of your charts and their results have gone through the roof." -Graham S.
Christian Morrisseau Character Timeline in Seven Fallen Feathers
The timeline below shows where the character Christian Morrisseau appears in Seven Fallen Feathers. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Chapter 8: River, Give Me My Son Back
...residential school system. Norval supported his family through his painting—and he taught his youngest son, Christian, how to paint as well. In 1962, after an exhibition in Toronto, Norval’s career began...
(full context)
Norval died in December of 2007. Christian stopped painting for a while—but the sensitive, artistic Kyle was just starting to paint and...
(full context)
After their first year in Thunder Bay, Christian, Kyle, and Josh moved to a bigger apartment where Christian, who’d resumed painting, could have...
(full context)
...school. He’d gotten arrested twice. On October 26, Kyle didn’t come home. The next day, Christian received a call from his cousin Robbie (who was also Kyle’s school counselor) telling him...
(full context)
...drunk. Kyle asked his mother for some money and told her that he loved her. Christian deposited some money in Kyle’s bank account, but Kyle never accessed the funds.
(full context)
...that Kyle might’ve been mixed up with the gang—he appeared to owe some debts. But Christian refused to believe that Kyle was involved with the Syndicate. Ivan would later testify that...
(full context)
Ten days into the search for Kyle, Christian suffered a breakdown. He got drunk and went down to the river to curse Nanabijou;...
(full context)
Christian was enraged. But nevertheless, after identifying the body, he picked up some tobacco and took...
(full context)
Chapter 10: Seven Fallen Feathers
Christian Morrisseau moved to Toronto, where he made a living selling his paintings. Morrisseau created a...
(full context)
