Ben Dobrishman
Ms. Maxwell
ENG 3U1
14 March 2015
The eects an individual may encounter that may harm or heal their humanity
Throughout the novel Three Day Road wri&en by Joseph Boyden, main characters experience
ba&les with their own or other humani*es. Xavier, Elijah and Niska all experience events that will change
the way they look at the world and others for the rest of their lives. A lot of that has to do with the war,
morphine and culture. As we go through the book there are many who lose their humani*es, who have
their humani*es damaged and some who a&empt to heal other people’s humani*es.
The readers experience many examples of one’s loss of humanity from both Xavier and Elijah,
however the readers also see some healing of one’s humanity. By the end of the book, Morphine seems
to play as a poison with both Elijah and Xavier addicted to it. Their addiction can be seen in many parts
of the book but a important event is where Xavier can see what the morphine is doing to Elijah, as Xavier
describes was Elijah was feeling:
But when the gold liquid is in his veins! Even at night the world is bathed in a so4 light. He hears
men talking and he understands what they are truly saying beneath their words. He can make
himself 6oat from his body at will and look down at the world below him–the world that man
has created– and s*ll see the beauty in it (Boyden 212).
Firstly, many can see what Elijah is like when he is under the morphine’s control. He seems to be
hallucina*ng the ba&lefield in front of him and says there is “still some beauty in it” (Boyden
212). Seeing beauty in a place where there is blood, pain and misery seems extreme and shows that he
is not thinking properly. It shows a glimpse of what Elijah will become later on in the book by explaining
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to us how he feels when he is under the morphine and why he enjoys being under its powers. Elijah
described to Xavier the feeling as if he is 6oa*ng from his body and overlooking everything surrounding
him like the ;rst *me he used morphine on the boat from Canada to the war. It is as if every *me Elijah
6oats from his body, he is slowly becoming less of himself and more of a monster the morphine has
turned him into. This quota*on is showing the transi*on of being more intact with his body and the way
he is slowly losing control over it.
Xavier experiences his ;rst *me with morphine when it is given to him by the nurses in the
hospital and it is at this *me that Xavier gets addicted. He starts seeing the way Elijah saw the world
when he was under the in6uence of morphine and how it made him feel and he explains, “But there is
something appealing in being the hero, the one who always does the right thing, says the funny thing.
Now I understand his love for the medicine. It takes all of the badness away. The world is warm and close
with the medicine surrounding me” (Boyden 373). The morphine is now in6uencing the way Xavier
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