Importance Of Family And Community In Joseph Boyden's Through Black Spruce

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In the novel Through Black Spruce written by Joseph Boyden exhibit the importance of family and community in the small town of Moosonee. Will Bird and Annie Bird, the main protagonists demonstrate how family and the community need to stick together through thick and thin. Will is in a coma due to a flying accident and is in the hospital. Annie is his niece who stays by his side throughout the novel showing deep support. Both characters start telling each other stories about past events which help bring their bond closer. In Joseph Boyden’s novel Through Black Spruce, demonstrates the importance of support, culture and storytelling in the Bird family and community. Will Bird devotes his life to being a bush pilot which unfortunately decides his fate. He wants to commit suicide due to his house catching on fire and thinking that his family did not make it. This shows how much Will values his family and he will go as far as to kill himself as long as he is with the people that he loves, “I took a big gulp, looked around at this wreck that was my home. I couldn’t do it. I took another gulp and let the rye burn down me, gagging at the taste as the east wind moaned. I couldn’t do it” (Boyden 286). Will’s struggle with thinking that his family is gone is heart wrenching. The willingness to give up his life for his family proves just how much he values family. Although Will is not successful with committing suicide, it shows how he is family oriented and rely’s to stick together. What is also significant is Will’s and Annie’s relationship. In the beginning of the novel, Will’s and Annie’s relationship is quite distant from each other, but as time progresses throughout the novel, they bond closer together. Annie starts to stick up for him when he is suppose to transfer to a hospital down south. She does not want that to happen, so she tells Will, “I won’t let it happen. I know what he wants as surely as if he’s spoken the words. ‘I’ll fight to keep you here with us’” (Boyden 154). Annie is not giving up to provide the best care that Will needs so he can wake up from his coma. This shows how she values Will and does not want him to go to some strange hospital down south where the conditions are not as equal to the current hospital. This demonstrates how the role of family is extremely important regarding support and sticking up for one another. The role of community throughout the novel is significant because it binds people together. When Annie has dinner with Old Man and others, it shows the bonds between individuals in the community. Annie is baffled when Painted Tongue gently cuts the goose and hands it over to the old women because Annie stereotypes him as a drunken homeless man, “I sit back on my dirty pillow, surprised, and watch as he carefully cuts strips from the goose, handing portions first to the old women, then to the old man, and finally to me” (Boyden 73). This quote shows fluency which proves how community is touched upon greatly in the novel. Eating a meal together is a sign of union with one another. Without the bond of a …show more content…
People form bonds and peace through storytelling which plays an important role in the novel. Without the bond of people in a community, the sense of togetherness and peace is faded away. In the novel Will is sharing with his nieces how he keeps secrets from people and is surprised by the fact that Mushkegowuk people share all of their secrets and he does not, “I am a keeper of secrets, just as your mother, Lisette, is the keeper of her own. Me, I don’t know where this comes from. The Mushkegowuk people love nothing more than to chatter like sparrows over coffee in the morning, over beer at night” (Boyden 12). Will is surprised with the amount of openness their is in the Mushkegowuk community. The openness in sharing secrets and stories forms a sense of togetherness and meaning with one another. By them sharing everything, they grow stronger as a community. Thus, storytelling is significant in the novel regarding

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