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The Secret Path Summary

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The Theme of Secret Path The story of “Secret Path” follows Chanie Wenjack, an Indigenous boy who ran from residential school and passed away of starvation, and one of the 150,000 victims of the residential school system created by the Canadian government intended to assimilate the Indigenous population of Canada during the 1800s. This graphic novel incorporates various emotions within the music composed by Gord Downie by using specific lyrics and adding connotations within the lyrics. Gord Downie was a Canadian rock musician, songwriter, writer, and activist. He was committed to Canada’s First Peoples and created a fund that persists as part of the legacy left by him to date. The combined illustrations by Jeff Lemire cleverly describe values …show more content…

Punishing and prohibiting the use of Indigenous languages was one of the methods used by residential schools to shred the students of their identity. This was done to “convert” First People to Canadian citizens and to have them practice Canadian culture. We can see in the graphic novel that all students are monitored constantly as the priests supervise Chanie and the other students even in the shower depicting the controlled environment within the schools allowing for the complete annihilation of inherited culture. As depicted in one of the panels, all students had their hair cut, an important figure in Indigenous culture representing spirit and the connection between man and earth. We can see this affecting Chanie personally as we can see his sad and emotional expression in the panel of the following occurrence. Residential schools promoted the idea that being an “Indian” was shameful and prohibited from practicing cultural traditions. Additionally, school locations were meticulously planned to be in areas far from Indigenous communities. As an example, Chanie had to attempt an astounding 600-kilometer journey to reunite with his father at Ogoki Post. Due to these circumstances, there was little to no social interaction leading to

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