Arden Little Light Analysis

I am writing to you because I am quite fearful of your current mental state. I understand that residential school is extremely stressful and emotionally distressful. Firstly, I have read the news regarding your classmates, from the suicides to the disease. Your life currently is very dark and lonely because grandmother passed away and your parents have abandoned you. What happened to Arden Little Light and the rest of your classmates that decided to commit suicide deeply dented even my own mental state. “I saw kids die of tuberculosis, influenza, pneumonia, and broken hearts,......saw wrists slashed and the cascades of blood on the bathroom floor” Pg 55 Arden was only six years old and never got see what life is about, the short six years

(Sheila Jack) The living conditions are awfully inhumane. The building itself is dull and sucks your Ojibway way and tradition. Father Quinney and Sister Ignacia alienize you because of your Fish Clan heritage. They attempt to wash everything you know about your ancestors as if it was grime or an odour. force-feed you English and Christianity as if you were a product of foie gras. Zhaunagash punishes you for being yourself and expressing your Ojibway culture. They try to convince you that the Ojibway way is inferior to the western English culture.

However, these sinful beings that consider themselves as “Christians” are totally incorrect. Your grandmother died for a reason, she wanted to protect you and teach you the Ojibway way of the Fish Clan. Don’t let the white men perform a complete genocide of the Indians and their beliefs. Unlike your classmates, you are strong. Your classmates are like fish suffocating and “fighting for air”, on the other hand, you're an eagle that will fly above all this. Although you are strong, you have been an introvert. Stuck inside your own chrysalis, not helping your peers who are having a harder time going through the same nightmare. Why don’t you talk to them? Stop aching in solitude and do