Isolation vs. Community Theme Analysis

At the center of Joseph Boyden’s Three Day Road is the First Nations legend of the windigo. Within North American Indigenous culture, the windigo is an evil spirit, often depicted as a large and powerful monster, whose hunger can only be satisfied by human flesh. When Micah, a respected Cree hunter, leaves his tribe and goes into the bush with his family, his wife finds the tracks of the windigo circling their lodge. As Micah’s family slowly starves in the unforgiving Canadian wilderness, a “strange man-beast” comes out of the bush and tells Micah’s wife that it will eat her baby if she doesn’t feed the child the next day. To save her child from the windigo, Micah’s wife must resort to cannibalism, and in doing so “goes windigo” herself. According to Cree legend, the spirit of the windigo can enter a human and infect them with evil and a thirst for blood that can quickly spread and destroy an entire community. Stories of the windigo represent the devastation that can result from an imbalance between the spiritual and physical self, but they are also haunting cautionary tales against the dangers of isolation. Through the legend of the windigo, Boyden highlights the importance of community and effectively argues that one should never turn their back on their tribe to strike out on their own, regardless of the circumstances.

Niska, one of the novel’s main characters, is “second to last in a long line of windigo killers.” Both Niska and her father are forced to kill those who “go windigo” after leaving their communities for the isolation of the bush. Micah, a “headstrong” young hunter, takes his wife and child and leaves the tribe, choosing instead to chance survival alone in the bush. Micah selfishly abandons his community for his own good and that of his family, leaving his tribe with one less hunter to sustain them. Micah’s decision ends tragically, and he freezes to death trying to feed his starving family. After Micah’s wife is visited by the windigo, she eats Micah’s flesh and feeds it to her baby. When she returns to her tribe with Micah’s butchered body in her pack, Niska’s father is forced to kill her and her child before the evil of the windigo can spread to the rest of the community. Niska is later visited by a man from a neighboring village who tells her that a young member of their tribe had gone “out in the bush” alone for weeks and came back with a pack full of human flesh. “He has gone mad and threatens to destroy all of us,” the man says. Like Micah, the young man left his community for the isolation of the bush only to be infected by the windigo, driving home the message that deserting one’s community can have disastrous outcomes.

Similarly, Elijah, the novel’s antagonist, isolates himself from his community during World War I and slowly “goes windigo,” a fate that once again positions isolation as dangerous—and even deadly. Elijah and Xavier, Niska’s nephew, are best friends and enlist in the war together. Xavier—a true “bush Indian” and the personification of First Nations culture—fears the military will separate him from Elijah, but Elijah welcomes a separation. "It might be better that they separate us," Elijah says to Xavier. "It will teach you a little about independence.” Elijah would rather be alone than with Xavier, the living symbol of his Native culture and community.

Elijah further isolates himself from Xavier—and, by extension, his Native community—through language. Xavier speaks Cree and very little English, but Elijah speaks almost exclusively in English. He even begins speaking with a British accent, further distancing himself from Xavier and their Indigenous community by mimicking the very white settlers who encroached on their land and destroyed their way of life. As Elijah begins to go mad, he often sneaks away from his battalion at night to kill Germans undetected. The punishment for desertion and acting without an officer’s order is death by firing squad, but Elijah’s urge to kill—his taste for blood, so to speak—is so strong that he abandons his unit and risks his own life to satisfy it. In leaving the fold of his community, in this case both his Native community and his battalion, Elijah endangers not only himself but countless others, emphasizing the severe risks associated with isolation.

Elijah’s cannibalism as he “goes windigo” is certainly metaphorical, but it is nonetheless represented in his thirst for killing Germans. Elijah begins scalping his kills, first as proof of his accuracy and skill as a sniper, but then almost compulsively, as if to satisfy his need for flesh. Elijah even offers Xavier some “gamy” and “tough” meat, supposedly horsemeat, but tells Xavier it is human flesh, “German, to be exact.” Elijah’s words presumably are meant as a joke, but Boyden plants enough doubt that readers can’t know exactly what the meat is. In the end, Xavier, the last “in a long line of windigo killers,” is forced to kill his best friend or risk being infected by the windigo himself. Boyden clearly traces this devastation back to the issue of isolation: Elijah isolates himself from Xavier and therefore turns his back on his culture and community as well, leaving him wide open for the evil spirit of the windigo to enter.