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Black Robe Essay Example

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Black Robe Essay Example
Paper 1 – Black Robe
The film Black Robe is set in Quebec, New France in 1634. The Jesuits put together a missionary with the approval of Captain Champlain to travel up the St. Lawrence River to try and convert the native tribes. They travel up the river to establish connection with a Jesuit mission in the Huron nation. Father Laforgue is chosen to the led the expedition along with Daniel, a young Frenchmen who was a worker who expresses his interest in returning to France and enter priesthood. The movie shows the relationship of the natives with the black robe is not good at the start. The natives fear them, however as they continue to interact with each other and learn from one another there relationship grows in a more positive aspect. The Jesuits motive is to send a missionary amongst the natives and spread the word of God. Their motives are that natives are uncivilized people. In a scene where black robe meets the other priest who was returning to France the priest’s ear had been cut off. The priest explained that the savages did this, the savages being the natives and that they are uncivilized just like the English and Germans were before the French shared their faith with them. The French used this as a reason for the missions to make the natives aware of God, and convert them to Christianity so that would be civil humans instead of uncultured, rule of less people. The relationships between the Jesuit missionary and the natives changed dramatically throughout their journey. At first the natives thought Black Robe, father Laforgue, was a demon and they did not trust him. In one scene, a native mother puts her dead child in a tree, which is a ceremonial burial custom for natives. Father Laforgue takes it out of the tree and blesses it. Mestigoit tell the other tribesman that Black Robe is putting a curse on the baby and that any sign of the cross is a way to steal the soul of natives. The natives contemplate killing father Laforgue but instead abandon

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