Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Three Day Road, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Isolation vs. Community
Racism and Assimilation
Language and Storytelling
Nature, War, and Survival
Summary
Analysis
Xavier wakes coughing. “Are you all right, Nephew?” Niska asks. “Do you want to know something, Auntie?” Xavier asks. “So many dead men lay buried over there that if the bush grows back the trees will hold skulls in their branches.” He has seen it happen. They once left a battlefield and returned months later to find it full of “flowers redder than blood.” The flowers grew everywhere, “even out of rotting corpses.” Xavier winces in pain. “Those flowers grew back, but that was all,” he says. “Useless things.” Niska looks at him. “Sleep, Xavier,” she says, and he closes his eyes.
Xavier’s comment of the dead left behind on the battlefield underscores the just how violent and deadly the war was. WWI was one of the bloodiest wars in history with over 10 million soldiers killed in combat, which equals to about 6,000 soldier deaths per day. (When civilians are included in the death toll, it increases dramatically). Despite this widespread death, however, the flowers continue to grow. Here, nature has complete disregard for the carnage of war and the evil human beings of capable of.
Themes
The rain falls relentlessly for five days in the trenches, and it makes Xavier “wonder if manitous are unhappy with [him].” Elijah, however, “is happy.” He wears an old German helmet he found in a crater and has begun speaking with an “English accent.” The other men think he is hilarious, but Xavier thinks Elijah “wants to become something that he’s not.” To the other soldiers, Elijah is “a hero,” but Xavier “won’t give in to this army’s ways so easy.” He learns their language but pretends he doesn’t. When an officer speaks to him, Xavier answers in Cree.
Elijah’s German helmet, which he obviously took from a dead soldier, suggests that he is already going windigo. Elijah approaches killing nonchalantly, like a game, but Xavier worries that he has angered the manitous and is being punished for his own involvement in the war. This also speaks to Elijah’s level of assimilation. He wears the helmet, symbolic of wemistikoshiw dress and culture, and even speaks like a wemistikoshiw. Xavier claims that not only is Elijah not the wemistikoshiw he presents himself to be, but he is not a “hero” either.
Themes
Xavier dreams of home and holds the medicine bundle that hangs from his neck. Grey Eyes tries “to talk Elijah into going to the medicine world with him,” but Xavier doesn’t think Elijah has tried any yet. Sometimes, Grey Eyes takes so much medicine that he “goes unconscious.” Other times, he takes only a little and is “glassy-eyed and calm.” Xavier wonders what Grey Eyes will do if the trench is raided while he is unconscious.
Xavier’s medicine bundle, given to him by Niska before he left for war, is symbolic of his Native identity and culture. Xavier constantly “fondles” and holds the medicine bundle close during the hardest days of the war, and he obviously finds great comfort and strength in his Cree identity. This passage also suggests that Xavier doesn’t know Elijah as well as he thinks he does. Elijah has already begun to take morphine (he does so on the ship to Europe), but Xavier doesn’t know this yet.
Themes
Elijah and Xavier’s unit are relived for rest after ten days. “I’ll miss the excitement,” Elijah says. “But yes, it will be good to relax.” They rest and go back to the front lines, and this continues until spring turns to summer. They are sent to Saint-Eloi, and Thompson begins to teach Elijah and Xavier “the art of the sniper.” They practice for hours each day, and Thompson teaches them to account for distance, wind speed, and trajectory. He is “an excellent teacher, patient and calm.”
Saint-Eloi is a reference to a series of battles fought from late March to mid-April 1916, near the city of Ypres in Belgium. Saint-Eloi was a complete disaster for the Allied forces. The British arrived before the Canadians, and communication between the two was poor to nonexistent. The city couldn’t be held, and the Germans were victorious. In the end, 1,373 Canadian soldiers were killed during the battles of Saint-Eloi.
Themes
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Thompson teaches Elijah and Xavier to blend into their surroundings, and they become “a part of the earth.” They wrap their rifles in rags to avoid glinting off the sun, and they learn to only shoot when they know they can kill. They must move immediately after shooting so as not to give away their position by the smoke from their rifles. “I am made for this,” Xavier thinks to himself.
The ease with which Elijah and Xavier become “a part of the earth” is reflective of their deep cultural connection to nature. Xavier may very well be “made for” being close to nature, but he doesn’t end up being “made for” killing like Elijah, which continues to upset popular racist stereotypes of Indians as savage killers.
Themes
Elijah and Xavier construct a shooting “nest” that is impossible to see and wait for hours on end, looking down their scopes. “There,” Xavier says in Cree and motions toward the bobbing head of a German soldier. Elijah fires, and the soldier’s head “explodes.” Xavier leans over and vomits. Elijah smiles. “I got him, didn’t I?” Elijah asks.
This, too, speaks to Elijah and Xavier’s differences. Elijah is excited to kill and seems proud, whereas Xavier becomes physically ill. Xavier certainly isn’t “made for” killing here. Also, Boyden’s use of the word “nest” to describe their shooting platform symbolically evokes birds, nature, and freedom. This passage perfectly captures Elijah’s understanding of “freedom”—the freedom to kill without consequence or remorse.
Themes
