In the early part of the twentieth century, Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside was a bustling urban center; it was a space where all things cultural, commercial, and political thrived. One could find institutions and buildings such as city hall and the courthouse and public spaces like Woodwards and Carnegie Library. Today, it is stigmatized as an area of varying social issues encompassing, but not limited to, homelessness, drug addiction, prostitution, mental illness, and welfare. On the other hand, it is also a place where grassroots efforts of community resilience and social activism are evident. It is important to acknowledge that, prior to all of this, the area is “situated on the unceded traditional territories of the Musqueam, Squamish and Tsleil-Waututh Nations” (City of Vancouver).
Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside is also one of the settings where the characters of Michelle Good’s Five Little Indians live, work, and play.
Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside is also one of the settings where the characters of Michelle Good’s Five Little Indians live, work, and play. Michelle Good is a lawyer and a member of the Red Pheasant Cree Nation whose body of work centers around the First Nations experience. She is an advocate for residential school survivors, and as a testimony to the history, her novel follows the interweaving stories of five First Nations individuals whose life trajectories are influenced by policies and practices shaped by the 1876 Indian Act. At a young age, these characters are forcibly taken from their families and placed into an church-run education system—which is marked with abuse by priests, nuns, and teachers—in order to “civilize” and assimilate them into the broader Euro-centric culture. The novel follows them as they are released into a world that is unkind to them or seeks to take advantage of them. The characters go through various life experiences, navigating the complex world of the urban core of Vancouver in the 1970s and 80s, as well as the consequences of trauma that they have experienced in the residential schools.
[T]here is a tension in understanding texts and characters that are rightfully angry at religious and education institutions that have caused them grief.
As educators in an English language classroom, we are called upon to present to our students a variety of texts that encompass a wide range of perspectives, including First Nations perspectives. Admittedly, working with texts that explore residential schools is difficult; the history and lived experiences are heavy and graphic. Michelle Good does not shy away from the horrors of abuse in the First Nations residential schools experience and the subsequent impact on the day-to-day lives of the survivors and their methods of coping. The novel contains explicit scenes of prostitution, violence, and death by drug and alcohol abuse. Moreover, as a teacher working in Christian education, there is a tension in understanding texts and characters that are rightfully angry at religious and education institutions that have caused them grief, often described in expletive terms. Nevertheless, an analysis of the novel, as well as the First Nations experience as a whole, is incomplete without recognizing and focusing on the moments of hope, joy, transformation, and resilience that the characters go through. This review aims to highlight the literary features of the book and, while recognizing the difficult aspects of this novel, champion Five Little Indians as a worthwhile text to study at the senior levels. What Five Little Indians ultimately teaches is that the characters, despite the experiences that they go through, are, as Good herself puts it, “fully formed human beings,” who are “more than their trauma” (van Koeverden).
Stylistically, the novel is written from the perspectives of several different characters whose stories intertwine both tragically and beautifully.
Multiple Perspectives and Rage
Stylistically, the novel is written from the perspectives of several different characters whose stories intertwine both tragically and beautifully—hence the name Five Little Indians. It is a fictional tale, but it is rooted in the experiences of the children who went to these schools, including Good’s mother and grandmother, whom she writes the story as a tribute to. In the book’s acknowledgments, Good writes, “May this be a tribute to my mother . . . who lived through the hell of one of these schools. Her tenacity taught me courage; her stories echo here” (293).
Each chapter title is the name of one of six different characters: five children, Kenny, Lucy, Howie, Clara, and Maisie, and one adult, Mariah (whose character I will describe later). The five children all went to the same residential school somewhere in the outskirts of Vancouver and afterward found their way to the Downtown Eastside core where they attempt to make a living for themselves. Kenny was known to be a boy who defied the school authorities and successfully ran away from the school. He eventually reconnects with Lucy, and they eventually have a child together. Howie, unlike the other kids, was originally from Oklahoma, but was abducted by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police during a visit to his relatives in British Columbia. He is enrolled in a school and abused by the priests there and later finds himself in and out of correctional facilities after a chance encounter with one of the abusers, whom Howie almost beats to death. Clara and Maisie are peers who were a little older and were sexually molested by the priests. After leaving the residential school, they struggle with their rage; one of them unfortunately succumbs to heroin and overdoses, and the other one gets involved with activism and slowly transforms her life to help advocate for others. As the pages of their life stories unfold, Good uses flashbacks of their childhood experiences, both positive and negative; these serve to highlight the dynamic happenings of their lives and the roots of their responses to trauma.
As the pages of their life stories unfold, Good uses flashbacks of their childhood experiences, both positive and negative; these serve to highlight the dynamic happenings of their lives and the roots of their responses to trauma.
In an interview, Good affirms that the multiple perspectives in telling this story, as opposed to the traditional single perspective, is essential because “one person could not possibly carry the burden of all the possible experiences a person could have” (CBC 6:21). By writing from the perspectives of different characters, Good creates nuance and makes the readers consider the diversity of experiences and ways of coping after residential schools. For example, Lucy, despite her seemingly soft and even-keeled temperament, exhibits signs of obsessive-compulsive behavior to deal with her anxiety. Her husband, Kenny, who ran away from the school as a child, exhibits a pattern of running away from expectations of life, and these behaviors put a strain on their relationship.
Rage is the most common and natural response that many of the characters share in their lives after residential schools, and this justified rage often leads them into more trouble. In telling his story in front of the parole board, Howie points out that society will never fully understand the abuse that they went through as children. He also rhetorically asks, “Where was the law then when he was beating us, breaking bones, and other, even worse things? That man never saw a day inside, much less inside a courtroom, and yet I am locked in this hell” (163). Just as Howie feels the law has failed him, Clara feels religion has failed her. She retorts, “Pray? You mean talk to myself and imagine some guy in the sky will make it all better?” (193). Ultimately, what the rage of these characters reveals is the failure of the government and society’s attempts to assimilate First Nations into Canadian society. Not only did society fail them, but it ostracized and disadvantaged them even further, leaving them to deal with the consequences in their day-to-day lives.
The variety of perspectives and the way characters cross paths makes for multiple interesting storylines and an overall compelling narrative. This is an abridged version of this article. To read more, subscribe to the print or digital edition of Christian Educators Journal.
Anthony Bigornia is a teacher and the Student Life Coordinator at White Rock Christian Academy in Surrey, BC. He currently teaches IB DP Language & Literature 11 and 12. When not teaching, he enjoys playing electric guitar for his church and DJing on the side.
Works Cited
CBC. “Michelle Good and Christian Allaire discuss the novel Five Little Indians.” YouTube, uploaded by CBC, 11 March 2022, www.youtube.com/watch?v=ucEpcudhqJU&t=2s.
City of Vancouver. “Acknowledging the Unceded Territories.” City of Vancouver, vancouver.ca/people-programs/land-acknowledgement.aspx. Accessed 31 January 2024.
Good, Michelle. Five Little Indians. Harper Perennial. 2020.
Miller, J. R. “Residential Schools in Canada.” The Canadian Encyclopedia. 12 October 2012, www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/residential-schools.
Hussein, Aliya. “How Downtown Vancouver’s Eastside Became What It Is Today.” 604Now, 10 April 2019, 604now.com/vancouver-downtown-eastside/. Van Koeverden, Jane. “Michelle Good on Her Novel Five Little Indians.” CBC Books, 14 March 2022, www.cbc.ca/books/michelle-good-on-her-novel-five-little-indians-and-the-question-that-guides-her-writing-1.6377078.