Saul experienced considerable amounts of trauma in his youth and young adult life and for a time engaged in negative coping strategies to manage the pain. However, towards the end of the novel, Saul takes several important steps to begin the healing process. What steps does Saul take and what does this reveal about healing from the trauma more broadly? Use two specific pieces of evidence to support your answer.
The central conflict of Indian Horse is Saul’s struggle to reconcile with his past by allowing his traumatic memories to resurface and finding ways to work past them. The beginning of the novel sets up this conflict through Saul’s mother and father, who are terrified by “the school” and unwilling, or unable, to speak of it. This silent preoccupation leads to alcoholism, neglect, and eventually their abandonment of Saul. At the same time, their presence in the novel highlights the past in a different way, as Saul inherits the trauma of the residential school even before he attends it. When Saul reaches adulthood like his parents did, he struggles with many of the same behaviors—he, too, isolates himself, abandons his found family, and slips into alcoholism. However, while Saul’s parents ignored Naomi, embraced Christianity, and shut themselves off from the past, Saul is able to reconnect with his ancestors and his traditions. By reaching back into the deep past, he is able to find the truth about his own immediate past, and to carry what he experienced with honesty. Unlike his parents, after his revelation, Saul speaks about his trauma, both to the younger patients at the New Dawn Centre and to Fred, Martha, and Virgil. Through open conversation, and relying on his community, Saul is able to begin moving on.
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