Similarities Between Indian Horse And To Kill A Mockingbird

Although racism, discrimination and progression of character is prominent in the books Indian Horse by Richard Wagamese and To Kill a MockingBird by Harper Lee, Indian Horse displays it in a much more upfront way.

Both Indian Horse and To Kill a Mockingbird show a high degree of racism, the only underlying difference being that one novel shows it first hand and the other shows it second. To begin, Indian Horse shows an upfront and hard-to-read version of racism towards aboriginals. At one point in the novel , the main character, Saul and his hockey team, the Moose, go to an out of town game and eat at a little restaurant. At this restaurant, a large group of white men come over and tell them that they have to earn the right to eat there

To expand, the main characters in Indian Horse, including Saul, Father Leboutillier, Fred Kelly and Virgil have all grown up in a society where discrimination is prevalent. All characters within the novel have had different encounters with discrimination and choose to respond differently to the situations they are put into. Saul suffers because of his race which has caused him many limitations. He is made fun of, mocked, beaten and even put into a residential school. The purpose of this school being to teach the Indian out him, an unrealistic and awful motive. On the contrary, Father Leboutillier ,, is discriminated because of his personality. He is seen as an outcast by the other teachers at the residential school because of his happy and friendly way of treating the children. The father is also better at connecting with the kids, and because of this, all of the other teachers show discrimination towards him. Similar to Saul, Virgil and the rest of the hockey team are also discriminated against. They are Indian. Their skin colour and ethnic background are the most important things to society. The barrier of skin has caused them to lose several opportunities, the largest being the chance to play professional hockey. Even if they were given the chance, it may end up as an awful experience like how it did for Saul. The Moose and

They live in separate areas and do separate things such as going to a different Church. They have little to nothing and they get by, by working for white people. This is a very big problem but is put to the side because of other things going on in the book. Scout also faces discrimination when her dad is defending a black man. People see this and start to shut Scout out at school or in public. They call her dad a nigger-lover (Lee). She takes offense to this and has had to go through it often because of her dad’s job. These two books both have a great deal of discrimination towards many people. They are similar in that way, but in the way discrimination is displayed, the books are quite different. Indian Horse gives a really personal feel of one facing discrimination and To Kill a Mockingbird just simply states the problem but doesn't go deep into it. Overall, discrimination is a very large problem that needs to be faced and the books do a good job of showing different ways discrimination happens. On the contrary, Saul’s character undergoes change while Scout remains the same. In the novel Indian Horse, Saul starts off as a young boy where the worst thing that has ever happened to him is his siblings being