The saying that is brought up on page 35 Mr. P exclaims "We were supposed to kill the Indian to save the child." Back when Mr. P was being taught to be a teacher when Indians misbehaved they would basically try and knock the Indian culture out of them with a stick. This was basically killing the Indian children and their pride towards their heritage. The people who made up these sayings were probably white and were not supportive of the Indian culture and didn't try to kill the Indians physically, but they tried to kill the culture and the history of the Indian people. Mr. P is coming to Junior's house because he would like to apologize for everything he did in his early teaching years. On page 35 Mr. P says "I hurt a lot of Indian kids when I was a young teacher, I might have broken a few bones." Mr. P says that he hurt so many Indian children and when he says "I may have broken a few bones," he is saying that he might have hurt children so much they were broken and scared. He did this because he was so used to this saying "we are supposed to kill the Indian to save the child." He is so distressed that he will not be able to apologize to all of the other Indian children, but would like to take the chance to be forgiven by Junior and maybe someday will be forgiven by the other children, he hurt when he was abiding by this saying.
-Brooke Shachoy
Brooke, I completely agree with your well written response. I really like how you brought up the point about how Mr. P is taking the chance of forgiving Junior as an important opportunity. It's an important part of the passage. Mr. P also says, "I can't apologize to everybody I hurt. But I can apologize to you (Alexie 35)." This quote supports your thoughts as well because it is stating how Mr.P was taking into consideration what he had done wrong earlier in his life to Indians and was trying fix it by apologizing to Arnold. He was attempting to patch up what he had broken in previous years of his life.
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