Wenjack

“He has a room in the basement that scares the life from us.”

Through this line, Wenjack hints at the horrific sexual abuse that he and the other boys experience in this basement. In a later chapter, Wenjack remembers how Fish Belly dragged him by his hair to this room and then brutally raped him. This connects to the theme of abuse in residential schools.

“I’m learning my English, me. But I won’t lose my tongue. I pretend to be the slow one so I won’t forget my words.”

Wenjack learns stilted English during the two years he spends at the residential school. He demonstrates resistance and resilience by retaining his native Ojibwe language while simultaneously acquiring the ability to speak English. He shows a clever capacity for subverting the colonizers’ program of cultural genocide by pretending to lack the mental capacity to speak English well.

“Daddy. Nindede. Mama. Nimaamaa. My sisters. Nimiseyag.”

Wenjack’s practice of whispering the Ojibwe words for family members reveals his loneliness and homesickness while at the school. It also foreshadows his willingness to risk death rather than face life without them. The text uses this line to further illustrate his capacity for resistance and resilience. He will use any tool at his disposal, including silence, to subvert the residential school’s attempt to erase his Ojibwe heritage.

“If the Fish Bellies hear me speak my words they beat me with a stick and make me eat soap.”

This reference to the ever-present threat of cruel and punitive punishment dramatizes the reality of abuse in the residential school system. White colonizers’ insistence that Indigenous students speak only in English was especially twisted because students like Wenjack were unlikely to have had prior exposure to the language. It was entirely unreasonable for teachers to expect Wenjack (or anyone) to become a fluent speaker of this new language virtually overnight without being allowed to use a native language as a frame of reference. The use of punishments like beatings or washing out students’ mouths with soap illustrates how teachers (and therefore the Canadian government) perceived Indigenous languages as dirty, “savage,” and inferior to English.

“I can tell which niijii, which friend, ran away from the school this week by the long red marks on his back. Ever a lot of red marks.”

Red marks on a boy’s back signify that he has been beaten with a stick or strap. By extension, they represent his abuse in the residential school. The fact that these boys continuously try to escape the school despite knowing that dire consequences await them if they are caught (and they will likely be caught) shows how badly they desire to escape the institution’s cruel and dehumanizing conditions.

“The three boys didn’t plan to run away from the school on that October afternoon. But the sun was warm enough that they took off their windbreakers and tied them around their waists.”

Inspired by an the unseasonably warm October afternoon, the boys make an impulsive decision to run away. Canadian Octobers can have warm afternoons, but winter weather is certainly approaching, especially as this takes place in late October. The boys’ failure to plan for this weather offers a subtle reminder of their youth and foreshadows Wenjack’s death.

“Tuberculosis and similar diseases had taken thousands of Indian children’s lives the last years in these strange schools, always built with a cemetery beside them to bury those the attendants knew would not make it to the final grade.”

The fact that residential school infrastructure was designed to include a cemetery proves the Canadian government considered it inevitable that thousands of Indigenous children would die. Instead of doing anything productive to prevent this, the government continued to intentionally transport thousands of children to their deaths under the guise of “helping” and “preparing” them to succeed in Euro-Canadian culture. Today, decommissioned residential school cemeteries endure as moral indictments of a government that was willing to kill massive numbers of Indigenous youths in pursuit of its goal of cultural genocide.

“Charlie coughed and spat phlegm, his breathing a whine.”

Wenjack’s death is foreshadowed by this illness, which compromises his health as he tries to navigate long geographic distances and rapidly cooling weather. Not only has his time at the residential school inflicted emotional trauma on him, but it has also left him struggling to breathe. Symbolically, then, Wenjack’s illness represents colonial Canada’s attempt to suffocate the state’s First Nations.

“We watched them. We, those who chose to, took the form of crows and followed them silently and swiftly.”

Manitous, Ojibwe forest spirits, watch over the three boys as they navigate through the forest. This shows the enduring nature of the boys’ innate Ojibwe identities, despite Euro-Canadian culture’s fierce attempts to remove them. Had the colonizers’ cultural extermination process been successful, the Manitous would no longer recognize the boys, much less accept them as their own. Later, Wenjack will recognize the Manitous in turn, a fact that illustrates his Resistance and Resilience.

“Charlie. His real name is Chanie. But the ones who forced him to that school can’t pronounce or don’t care to listen and so say it with sharp tongues instead.”

The Manitous reflect here on the anglicization of Chanie Wenjack’s first name, a reference to the residential school system’s determination to stamp out Indigenous language and culture, even and especially at the fundamental level of personal identity. Chanie Wenjack’s name is thought by white teachers to be “too Ojibwe” and therefore changed to “Charlie.” This illustrates residential schools’ commitment to Indigenous cultural erasure, as well as their perception that Indigenous words and culture are inferior to English words and culture.

“The coldest part of North October night sets in.”

Wenjack’s death from exposure is again foreshadowed by the rapidly cooling weather. Winter is approaching, and Wenjack does not have the clothing, skills, or equipment to survive it on his journey home. Had he not been separated from his family, he likely would have had the opportunity to learn from older Ojibwe how to successfully navigate such circumstances. The fact that he dies alone on a cold October night at the age of 11 parallels the sociopolitical coldness of a world whose reigning powers created institutions that systematically kill Indigenous youth like himself.

“I watch as the older brother shakes his head in a big no. He kicks the younger one hard who cries awake.”

The boys’ experience with Euro-Canadian culture has taught them to feel embarrassment and shame at being near male friends and family. This illustrates the cyclical nature of cruelty: The boys were subjected to systematic cruelty by their residential school, so they then enact cruelty on others, which culminates in successive generational cycles of abuse and pain. The improperness of touching is a belief imparted from the white teachers at their residential school, not a value belonging to the boys’ own culture. The boys’ experience of sexual abuse at the residential school might also be implied by their shame at touching.

“We enter the weir of rocks that merge into a V, the channel we travel narrowing to the uncle and his long stick and snare, our head entering the circle of wire as he deftly yanks the long stick with his strong wrist’s flick.”

The Manitou in the body of this pike chooses to surrender itself to ensure that the boys are fed when they arrive at the home of the brothers’ uncle and aunt. This illustrates the connection between the boys and the forest spirits: Their Ojibwe identity is still recognized by the forest despite their school’s efforts to assimilate them into Euro-Canadian ways of being. This connects to the theme of resistance and resilience.

“What is my word for none?”

Despite Wenjack’s attempts to retain his Ojibwe language, he often forgets words and phrases. This illustrates the success of the program of cultural erasure at the residential school and foregrounds the recurring theme of loss of Indigenous language and culture.

“He understands the words, the Ojibwe weaving through the stubborn English.”

Wenjack’s admixture of English and Ojibwe speaks both to the loss of Indigenous culture as well as to Wenjack’s capacity for resistance and resilience. Through constant abuse and punitive discipline, his school has taken away much of Wenjack’s memory of his own language. Here, Wenjack’s English is characterized as “stubborn” because he is unable to communicate without it even when speaking to another Ojibwe speaker.

“Someone broke something in him. We don’t have the tools to fix it.”

The uncle recognizes a brokenness in Wenjack that intimidates him. As such, he tells his wife that Wenjack cannot stay. What the uncle senses here are the aftereffects of the horrific sexual abuse Wenjack endured at the hands of Fish Belly, which has left him traumatized, isolated, and confused. This connects to the theme of abuse in residential schools.

“He buries his face into the leaves so that the girl and her mother won’t hear. The wails slow to sobs slow to hiccups as we shiver the last of the leaves around him.”

Wenjack’s distress illustrates his ongoing trauma due to the abuse he experienced at the school. Instead of caring for him, his white schoolteachers subjected him to constant physical, emotional, and sexual abuse. Wenjack’s suffering evokes the agony endured by so many Indigenous children, which in many cases continued throughout the rest of their lives and continues to negatively impact their communities, children, and grandchildren.

“You can’t stay here, the uncle says. You must return to the school. Look, the bad weather approaches and I have no room for you.”

Wenjack’s death is foreshadowed by the approaching winter weather, which the uncle warns him about. The uncle tells him that he will be able to make it to school if he hurries there now. Instead, Wenjack seals his fate by embarking on a lengthy journey to try to return home.

“The wind blows cold from my arm where the school lives when I turn that way.”

Wenjack metaphorically associates the cold wind blowing from the school’s direction with the emotional coldness he felt while at the school. For him, the experience of residential education was shot through with loneliness, homesickness, and extreme abuse. This leads him to try to reach his home rather than return to the school—a decision that will cost him his life.

“If only amik would give me his tail.”

Wenjack longingly wishes for the beaver to give him his tail so that he could cook it on a fire like his father used to do. Wenjack has missed out on learning essential survival skills that he likely would have been shown by his community had he been able to remain with it. As things stand, he is ill-prepared for his journey home: He cannot produce food, create shelter, or sustain a fire.

“The slap of the amik tail is the slap of teacher across my face.”

Although the slap of a beaver tail would be a common sound in a Canadian forest, Wenjack associates it with an abusive teacher who slapped him in the face. The episode evokes the loss of Indigenous culture and its connections to the natural world, as Wenjack’s happy memories of the forest are overwritten by his memory of abuse at a Euro-Canadian institution.

“He pushes me on my stomach. His mouth. Nindoon. On my back. Nipikwan. Hurt. He hurts. Don’t hurt me. Please don’t hurt.”

This passage reveals that Wenjack was raped by his teacher at the residential school. As is illustrated in his reference to Ojibwe words for mouth and back, Wenjack nonetheless attempts to maintain his Ojibwe identity as a form of resisting the trauma of this experience. This quote is a clear illustration of abuse in the residential school system.

“Father. Nindede. Heart. Ninde.”

Wenjack chants the words for “father” and “heart” to himself as he drifts toward death. This illustrates the importance of Ojibwe identity to Wenjack and his ability to exercise resistance and resilience. It also shows that his heart belongs at home with his family, especially his father, which means that Euro-Canadian culture’s attempts to indoctrinate and assimilate him have failed. By depicting Wenjack as dying in such a terrible way—as an innocent child alone on a cold night in the middle of nowhere—Joseph Boyden sets up a moral critique of the residential school system.