Saul's Form of Strength: Persevering in Indian Horse Victoria De yturbe 9th Grade

Perseverance is the hardest but most necessary quality for success; in fact, perseverance is a hard-earned characteristic for Richard Wagamese’s protagonist, Saul in his 2012 novel, Indian Horse. Saul is able to persevere through residential school, racist bullying and the disease of being an alcoholic. Even though Saul does not have a perfect ending, he is able to persevere through enough hard times to be successful.

Saul is able to persevere when he is left with a sense of unworthiness, through racism and succeeds when all odds are against him, because of his determination. First of all, he is determined to fight even though everything is taken from him. Influential people or many of his jealous team members took away from him his culture, his religion, many opportunities but most importantly hope. When Saul first arrives at residential school, he describes this by saying “When your innocence is stripped from you, when your people are denigrated, when the family you came from is denounced and your tribal ways and rituals are pronounced backward, primitive, savage, you come to see yourself as less than human. That is hell on earth, that sense of unworthiness. That is what they inflicted on us”(81). This shows just how unworthy...