Summary Of Joseph Boyden's The Orenda

Joseph Boyden’s The Orenda gives a unique look into Canada’s rich and tumultuous past. Through three strong charters Boyden is able to tell a story that transports the reader into the colonization era in Canada. By using three different characters, we as readers are able to conceptualize the point of view of the parties involved, the Native Peoples and the French Jesuit missionaries. While some argue there are numerous historical inaccuracies, I feel they are used to the advantage of the books. This book leaves a lot to the imagination of the reader and makes you question what is real and what is not. Personally, I had a lot of theories and questions about how these events could occur it encouraged me to research and learn about Canada’s beginning. …show more content…
For me, the most drastic and unbelievable charter evolution was that of Snow Falls. She went from cutting off Bird’s finger to becoming his daughter and denouncing her people. I found that the relationship between Christophe Crow and Bird showed what an actual relationship at the time might have been. Bird and Christophe maintain throughout he book an uncertainty about each other and a disapproval of each others customs. Bird and Crow have to live in the same area and get to a point where they depend on each other. Bird depends on Crow for food and supplies. Crow depends on Bird for goods and improvement of native French relations because he is a leader in the community. Boyden could have given the names Crow and Bird to the main charters; even though they come from different tribes they are both still people. At the end of the book Bird even admits he misses the Crow. Bird became used to having Crow around and in Birds time of need was given help by the …show more content…
Something that bothered me through this book was the line that was drawn between good and bad or friend and enemy. Bird’s Wendat tribe suffered more loss because of the dieses brought to them from the “new world,” yet the Iroquois are still their biggest enemy. The Iroquois were seen as monsters that would torture someone for days, yet this was a practice that Bird’s people also took part in. This practice was also called caressing, which was a great honor, again blurring the lines between good and bad. I think Iroquois were unjustly portrayed. Both the Iroquois and Huron had customs that were unsettling to our way of thinking but a normal part of their life. I also think the relationship between Bird and Christophe Crow was down played. If Christophe was a prisoner at the beginning of this novel then why did Bird caress him in the novel? Theses are a few inconsistences throughout the novel that make it confusing at