First Point

I have just reached the first point of significance in my reading of Three-Day Road by Joseph Boyden. I’d like to start off by addressing the style character development addressed in this intriguing piece of literature. Although, I’m already a good 100 pages into the novel, the read still provides in-depth character development through pre war experiences that shape characters such as Elijah and Xavier. The writing style is quite different than your standard book. This style has a resemblance to Broken Ground’s chapters where each new chapter focused on a different period of time or character. This fashions the book away from a more linear perspective, and allows for the reader to collect information on the characters from different periods of time and events. I found this style of writing to be far more rewarding to the reader in Three-Day Road then Broken Ground since there’s far less characters to follow in Three-Day Road.


So far Three-Day Road has used its unique chaptering style effectively, allowing for overall themes such as survival, and several reoccurring secondary themes such as jealousy and exclusion to be continually developed in different contexts. The major theme survival has been present since the beginning of the story. "XAVIER TWITCHES AND MOANS in his sleep.... He thinks I don't see him putting those needles in his arm. They are a part of what's killing him... But something far worse is consuming Xavier from the inside.... I must figure out the right cure or I will lose him, and he's the last of my family"(32). In this quotation the reader learns that Xavier has survived World War I, but the possibility of death is still present. Although, the reader has been informed of Xavier’s safe return home the author uses Xavier’s flashbacks to war to continue the theme of survival.


"Elijah looks through his scope, his rifle aimed in the direction of where I point... a soldier is standing... He has no idea that he can be seen, and as I look at his face, young and pimply and scowling from the work.... sudden concussion of [Elijah’s] rifle makes my body jump.... The young soldier's face is a red smearing explosion that exits the back of his head in a spray before he crumples from sight" (80).


The gruesome depiction gives the reader the feeling of how difficult survival world have bean during war, and how aware one must be to survive. Joseph Boyden also develops the theme of survival through a secondary storyline that evolves Xavier’s Aunt’s tribe when she was growing up. During winter when food was scarce a mother and father of a infant decide to set up their own camp and seek food for themselves. This had a disastrous ending, with the father dying from the cold and the mother cannibalizing her husband, so their child and herself could survive. When the woman returns to her original camp the mother and her infant are strangled to death by Xavier’s Aunt’s father from fear that cannibals bring bad luck. The book has been very rich in detail and that is one thing I look for in a book. Overall I’m quite thrilled with the book and the way it reads.