Motorcycles And Sweetgrass By Drew Hayden Taylor

Motorcycles and Sweetgrass is a novel that taught me about modern Indigenous values and lives, while being entertaining and engaging to read at the same time. In Motorcycles and Sweetgrass, Drew Hayden Taylor demonstrates that finding balance between culture and modern realities is essential to grow needed familial connections. Hayden Taylor portrays the importance through the literary devices of conflict, setting, and characterization.

To begin, Hayden Taylor uses conflict to demonstrate the way perspectives need to change. John’s arrival resulted in person vs person conflict for many of the characters, allowing him to serve as a catalyst for their discovery of balance and sense of connection. Firstly, Wayne’s suspicion of and later fight

To begin, Sammy went to the residential school as a child and never recovered from the trauma inflicted on him. He battles alcoholism and nightmares from his time there, which affected him deeply and prevents him from living out his intended life. When he returned to Otter Lake, he was never able to find balance between his culture and the reality of the world, and “‘Somewhere in Sammy’s mind, he’s made the decision to speak just Anishnawbe in iambic pentameter.’” (172) Language was the one part of his culture that he was able to cling onto, though skewed. He was never able to find true balance between his culture and the modern world after his return, and was therefore unable to form connections with his family and community. In the present events of the novel, he is seen as very isolated due to his alcoholism and refusal to speak the English language like everyone else on the reserve. There is not anyone in the community who he is able to connect with and is only perceived by others instead of truly interacted with. “Some people might point to Sammy as an example of what happened to the children that had been sent away to such schools, [...] Other less sympathetic folk merely pointed to him as a crazy old drunk” (57). Sammy helped me understand that despite being so essential, balance is not always

To start, by having the notions of other characters on Wayne, I was able to understand how Wayne was perceived by those characters and clearly see his growth. Wayne is introduced by being known as “An isolationist and contemporary Native–mystic, for lack of a better term – Wayne led a strange and separate life and there were always rumors about what he did over on his island.” (70) By viewing the assumptions of others, it is clear that Wayne lacks connection to his family, and is trying to live the life of a pre-colonial era Indigenous person, instead of in the modern world. He is a character that goes to the extreme of living a cultural life, which in turn caused a disbalance in his life and relationships. I believe Hayden Taylor used the character of Wayne effectively to portray the isolation and lack of connection to family that is caused by disbalance. Furthermore, Dakota was quickly overtaken by affection for John, which continued for most of the novel. However, when she and Virgil need to work together to help Wayne, she realizes that she lacks her Indigenous culture and identity. Her realization developed when Virgil was explaining how John is Nanabush, and is revealed when she tells him,