“The River Claimed my brother”
Amelia recalls, “The river claimed my brother that day. His body was never found and if you believe as I do, then you know that the river needed his spirit back. But that’s the woman talking. The little girl didn’t know what to make of it. I went to the river every day that summer and fall to sit and wait for my brother. I was sure that it was just a joke, a tease, and he’d emerge laughing from the water, lift me to his shoulders, and carry me home in celebration of another really good one.” Irwin’s drowning is ironic considering that he is a renowned, unconquerable swimmer in the reservation. The metaphors which Amelia employs to represent her brother’s swimming expertise persuade a reader that Irwin is the genius. His unforeseen drowning could be attributed to weariness because the swimming contest transpires after he labors on a farm. Manifestly, he is not strong enough to navigate the deep point. His outstanding talent is not supernatural; hence, he is overwhelmed by nature.
The Irony of the Cross
Amelia elucidates, “We moved from a world of bush and rock and river to one of brick and fences and fields. There we were made to speak English, to forget the sacred ways of our people, and to learn to kneel before a cross we were told would save us. It didn’t.” The missionary school where Amelia and her siblings end up endorses Christianity; the cross is illustrative of Christianity. It is ironic that the cross does not liberate Amelia and her siblings from their distress, yet they are taught that its part is redeeming humanity. The cross’s incapacity to save them specifies the paradox of religion. Being a Christian and believing the cross is not a warranty of a trouble-free life. Even Christians withstand the complications which are distinctive among humanity.
The Irony of Strappings
Amelia explicates, “John rejected everything about that school and his rebellion led to strappings that he took with hard-eyed silence. The coldness in me was a furnace in him and he burned with rage and resentment. Every strapping, every punishment only stoked it higher. He fought everyone. By the time he was sixteen and old enough to leave on his own, the farm work had made him strong and tough.” The strappings are excruciating; hence, they are intended to soften John by making him yielding and passive. The ironic repercussion of the strapping validates that John is a stoic individual whose fervent conviction about the Tribal ways cannot be transferred through painful punishments
