Comparing Three-Day Road And The Fifth Wave

N. Regehr

Mr. Sharp

Humanities 10

7/November/2022

Comparing The Use Of Multiple Narrators In Three Day Road And The Fifth Wave “We all fight on two fronts, the one facing the enemy, the one facing what we do to the enemy” (Boyden 328). The novels Three Day Road and The Fifth Wave both utilize the narrative technique of multiple narrators. The novel The Fifth Wave is about a zombie apocalypse in the United States in modern society. The Fifth Wave has different sections throughout the book, switching between major characters who are all crucial to the novel. Three Day Road by Joseph Boyden is a novel about World War I and Canadian colonization. This novel switches between characters; most chapters change between telling accounts of the war and

This is shown clearly in The Fifth Wave in a quote on page 227 where Rick Yancey writes “Come here,” I whisper to Nugget, scooting over and patting the mattress. “I’ll say your prayer with you, and then you can go to sleep, okay?”. This quote depicts a scene of Sammy (Nugget) who is also the main character Cassie’s brother, talking to Ben Perish (Zombie) the character Cassie had a crush on in high school before the zombie apocalypse started. This brings an interesting perspective to the novel as Cassie thinks that Ben is dead, doesn’t know where Sammy is, and has no idea Sammy and Ben know each other at all. Therefore, it is because of the usage of this technique that the reader knows what happens to these characters throughout the majority of the book. This can be compared to Three Day Road where Niska thinks “What of Elijah? If they made a mistake about Nephew’s death, maybe they made one about Elijah. (Boyden 5)” This quote refers to the time when Niska was supposed to pick up Elijah after the war was finished, but it turned out to be Xavier. She had no idea that Elijah had become a bloodthirsty killer and that in the end, Xavier was forced to kill him as he had become a “wendigo”, the evil spirit Niska and Xavier were taught to destroy at a very young age. Henceforth, if it weren't for the sections

In both of these novels, the storylines in one location have a major impact on the storylines in different locations, and in the case of The Fifth Wave, they even converge on each other. One of the first conversations Cassie has with Evan Walker after he saved her life is about Sammy, in which she states, “‘Took them where?’ I don't know. They told us Wright-Patterson, but-” (Yancey 154). This is right after Cassie is brought into Evan Walker's house near death, where he put her on an IV in an attempt to save her life. After she finally wakes up, Evan asks where they took Cassie’s brother. And as the quote states, Cassie said she was told her brother is going to Wright-Patterson, an “abandoned” air force base. The reader at this point has no idea what is happening at Wright-Patterson, or if it even exists. Meanwhile, as Wright-Patterson, ”Private Nugget, front and center!”(Yancey 222). This is Sammy at Camp Heaven (Wright-Patterson), being put into a squad with Ben Perish. The story goes on to tell you an abundance about Camp Heaven and Cassie’s journey attempting to find and save Sammy. This is similar to the way it is used in the Novel Three Day Road, as when Niska is narrating the novel, you hear plenty about her life growing up and dealing with the colonization of Canada as an Indigenous person. One of the experiences Boyden writes about