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Summary Of Borders By Thomas King

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Identity and identification plays a key part in one’s life, it portrays their true self by their beliefs and their mindset towards different situations in life. In the short story “Borders” by Thomas King, the author tells the reader a key message, through the mother in this story, about how identity plays a key role in situations in life where there are major societal barriers due to your identification or nationality. The mother demonstrates this greater message in this story because, due to her determination and strong will power, she is able to overcome a societal barrier where her nationality is shunned by the public by being non existent or fake.

A key event that portrays the theme in this story is the first meeting with the border agency. An example from the story is when the guard asks: “Canadian side or American side?” (Pg. 2) and the mother simply replies “Blackfoot side” (Pg. 2). This short conversation clearly demonstrates the strong will power of the mother as being true to her beliefs, despite the fact that she is unable to cross the border, yet again. The mother could have easily said the the guard that she is …show more content…

3) said the guard, again the mother simply just replies “Blackfoot” (Pg. 3). But then the guard throws a very rude comment by saying: “Really? I have a friend I went to school with who is Blackfoot. Do you know Mike Harley?” (Pg. 3). The women was just joking around by saying this comment but its is like saying, I know every indian person from india just because I’m indian. The same way the guard is saying to the mother as if she and her son know every Blackfoot person in their tribe just because they are Blackfoot. Though the guard wasn’t meaning to have any ill feelings towards the mother, it demonstrates major disrespect towards the mother, her nationality and her

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