April Raintree Themes

April Raintree was born daughter to Metis parents in Winnipeg in 1955. We are first introduced to April’s life when she is six years old. April Raintree describes her father, Henry as being “ a little of this, a little of that and a whole lot of Indian” and describes her mom, Alice as “part Irish and part Ojibway” with Cheryl inheriting their father’s brown skin and brown eyes and April having pale skin. Over the course of the first chapter we learn that April and her sister who is eighteen months younger than her have been witnessing their parents having a “medicine problem”. This medicine is soon to be realized as alcohol, a common theme throughout the book. April and Cheryl have observed first handedly when it was apparent that their mother
This is another common theme throughout the book which is racism or discrimination against the native heritage. April seems to be very aggrieved about being Metis and wishes she was fully white whilst Cheryl is clearly satisfied and proud to be a native even writing history essays about the Metis. April finds out in this chapter that her parents were never sick and were alcoholics but does not reveal this to Cheryl. Cheryl as a surprise then switches homes to live with April and the DeRosiers which is very frustrating to April after what she is going through at the home. April and Cheryl get very good marks in school which is the only thing in which April and Cheryl can hold above Maggie and Ricky. Maggie and Ricky at one point also try to harm Cheryl by luring her into a pin with a bull in it. The bull eventually feels threatened and tries to attack Cheryl but her dog surprisingly distracts the bull long enough for her to get away. When April tries to stand up for Cheryl she no doubt gets shut down by Mrs. DeRosier but unexpectedly Mr. DeRosier stands up for the girls backing up what was indeed true. Cheryl had also got herself in to trouble in this chapter though from standing up for Metis people in one of the books they were reading at school resulting in a visit to the
April throughout the book had shown signs that she was very ashamed of her Metis background and had attempted to act white throughout the book. In my personal opinion I think April was ashamed of her Metis background until after Cheryl’s death when she has said she would like alcohol to stop hurting “our” people and taking the blood of “our” people which is why the fabric of my book is red. When she had said our people I had originally thought she was talking about just her family but had letter came to the conclusion she was talking about Metis people. I truly believe that when she had said our that she had come to part with her background and was finally seeing herself as part of the Metis heritage. Alcoholism is also very present throughout the book. Consistently it is being brought up that there were always drunk Indians on Main Street. Part of the reason why I think that liquor was such a large part of the book was because of the common assumption that all aboriginals are drunks or do drugs. This is the common stereotype which April seemed to try and avoid when she pretended that she was white. April when she was younger had also thought that her parents were just taking medicine but as she grew up she had realized her parents were alcoholics and prioritized alcohol over their own children. I can relate to