Five Little Indians Literary Elements

Historical Fiction

The novel is largely set in Vancouver, Canada after the end of the residential school system in that country.

The novel is told from the perspective of a third-person narrator.

The novel is somber, reflective, and melancholic.

The novel's eponymous "Five Little Indians," Kenny, Lucy, Clara, Howie, and Maisie, are the novel's protagonists. The residential school system is the novel's antagonist.

The main conflict in the novel revolves around the characters' efforts to overcome the trauma and abuse inflicted upon them by the residential school system and those behind it.

When the characters are finally able to face their trauma head-on and move forward from it, starting anew.

At the start of the novel, there is a conversation about the Indian Act. This foreshadows the characters finally taking a moment to process their trauma, in which they realize the Indian Act was meant to divide them and further subjugate them.

The sheer force of will Kenny, Lucy, Clara, Howie, and Maisie exhibit when dealing with difficult situations (mainly racism) is understated by author Michelle Good.

Much of the novel is filled with allusions to history, particularly the history (and mistreatment) of Aboriginal people in Canada and the United States.

There is vivid imagery of natural landscapes throughout the book, underscoring the dichotomy between the mistreatment many Aboriginal people experienced at residential schools and the beauty that surrounded the schools.

Despite living in a world that values neither, the five main characters in the novel are paradoxically seeking to find solace and healing.

Good doesn't utilize parallelism in this novel.

"The System" is often used to refer to the broad residential school system.

The residential schools are often personified and given human-like characteristics.