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Summary Of Borders By Thomas King

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Recommended: Individuality vs conformity in society

Planning
I will be addressing prompt two in my personal response to text, based off of the short story “Borders” by Thomas King. → What do these texts suggests about the conflict between pursuing a personal desire and choosing to conform? Support your idea(s) with references to one or more of the texts presented and to your previous knowledge and/or experience.

The all encompassing idea of the short story “Borders” was that individuals should not conform to mainstream society, even if it is easier to do so, and instead should stay true to their personal desire, which in the short story’s case was maintaining one’s heritage by declaring oneself Blackfoot rather than American or Canadian. I took the same idea and applied it to my story “The Little Warrior,” by …show more content…

His name symbolizes his refusal to conform to the residential school’s ethics and conducts. Residential schools were essentially government sponsored religious institutions run by the Anglican, Catholic, and Presbyterian churches that assimilated First Nations children into the mainstream Canadian culture. Throughout the story, Oniiniiwat was able to oppose the abhorrent practices of the residential school, which sometimes included mental, physical, and sexual abuse to the students. Through encountering those horrendous conducts of the school, Oniiniiwat was able to fight for himself like a warrior. The word “little” is extremely significant in the sense that it emphasizes the age at which the protagonist was kidnapped from his loving home. Oniiniiwat was a child when he was forced to endure all the hardships the school entailed, and yet not once did his spirits falter. This usually isn’t the case for many residential school survivors; the abuse they have gone through in one form or another materializes later in life, be it through alcoholism or being a part of the poverty and abuse

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