Almost everyone experiences a loss in their life. It's like there are missing pieces in life. Ultimately, accepting what happened and moving forward with love rather than sadness is best. In the novel Indian Horse by Richard Wagamese, the main character, Saul, is taken from his family and placed at the Saint-Jérôme boarding school. The deaths of his brother Ben and his grandmother Naomi affect him. Until he discovered hockey, the thing he truly connected to in his life. While he's on the ice, nothing else seems to matter. Fred Kelly came and took Saul to his house in Manitouwadge. Saul then played for Moose, the city team. All the boys on the team were First Nations, as was Saul, making him the youngest. He feels he can no longer escape the hatred so he turns to a bottle in hopes of drowning out and dulling every hateful thing anyone has ever said to him. Throughout the novel, Saul continues to resist the loss of his family, culture, and innocence, ultimately paving the way for healing. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get the original essay Firstly, the loss of family changes Saul physically throughout the novel, he becomes resilient when he is introduced to hockey. After Saul experiences the loss of his brother and the disappearance of his parents, Saul and Naomi canoe down the river, where it is warmer, to stay with Naomi's nephew, Minoose. After four days of traveling to Naomi's nephew's house, they hit rough water and are forced to swim away from the boat, where there is ice and bad weather. Unfortunately, Naomi dies, risking her own life to care for Saul. The men who take Saul only seem to care about taking him away from his family: “We would have found Minoose and sheltered us there and my grandmother would have found a way to keep me with her. Instead, she was gone. Frozen to death. Having saved myself, I was cast adrift on a strange new river. After this, Saul loses confidence in those around him. He grows up without having a proper parental figure, which affected Saul as he grew up in constant fear and anger as a child. He has difficulty talking about his past and his family with others, but he remains resilient. Saul is placed in Saint-Jérôme, where he begins to read about hockey. While at school, he experiences rape, abuse, dehumanization, and more horrible things. Saul remembers talking to Naomi about the mystery of the universe and he related it to how he feels about hockey: “When I surrendered to the mystery of the ice, I became a different creature. I could slow down time, choose the pace I needed each time I set out to learn a new skill.” Once Saul becomes more interested in hockey, he finds happiness. He doesn't think about his defeats and focuses on moving the sport forward. The feeling of sliding on the ice, of playing hockey, is for him a feeling of freedom. After the loss of his family, hockey brings healing to Saul after he is able to endure his suffering and find a new identity through playing hockey. Second, Saul lost his culture while at St. Jerome. Ultimately, Saul shows that he must not give up. After leaving boarding school, he was placed in a house with Fred Kelly and joined the team's town, Moose. After working so hard on the team and others being racist towards him, Saul left the town of Manitouwadge at the age of eighteen. Fred Kelly warns Saul it will be difficult to find work elsewhere.