He has thought to be quiet, mysterious and one of the best native Indian snipers in the world during world war one. His real name was Xavier Bird and they called him ‘X’. His fast precision and accurate aim, one could not compare him to any other soldier in the British Army. Who would have known what would be left of Xavier after? Although, Xavier was one of the survivors of the war, the destructive consequences have impacted and created many losses, physically, socially and mentally. Xavier was a young, handsome man with an immense duty in the war to defend his country from Europe’s Western Front and save himself.
In the process of this, he has lost, physically, his naturally ability to live his everyday life normally. In the summer of 1919, he is alone, in unimaginable pain from an amputated leg and dying from a spirit broken by the nightmare of war. He is unable to walk on his own and is in need of crutches where ever he goes. “‘Look at my leg, Auntie,’ he whispered.
There is anger in his tone. ‘Look at what’s left of it. ’ He has pulled up the material of his pants and a red nub pokes out above where his knee should be. ” (Boyden. 57) Xavier feels helpless with his missing leg destroyed in battle and feels as if his whole world is crashing down.
This consequence of war has made him barely unable to move around, constantly needing support to get through his daily routines. With the pain in his leg affecting his heart and arms all together, there may be a chance for ‘’the pain in the heart to kill him’’ (Boyden. 288) The catastrophic pain in his arms, leg and heart, Xavier’s health has also been a leading problem. He does not eat because his body feeds on despair and he ‘’fights the sleep that pulls at me [Xavier]’’.
Boyden. 11) He does not feel the need to because of his lack of meals and sleep during his time at the war. Xavier’s body has weaken to an unsatisfactory state that Niska (Xavier’s aunt) must ‘’place her mouth against his and in this way feed him so that he swallows in little gulps. ’’ (Boyden.
289) Xavier, thought, is not anymore at ease. Between the pain in what is left of his leg and starvation, he is left with the brawl of fighting the urge to use the last of his morphine needles before they are all gone.With the agony of the apparition in his leg caused by the affects of war, he must use it to calm the misery. Xavier, not only addicted to morphine, but is powerless without it; and this medicine, once thought to help Xavier, has created a death trap. Niska had predicted when ‘’his medicine [is] gone he will become very difficult.
[Xavier’s] heart will probably stop. He will struggle first, and the pain in his heart will kill him. ” (Boyden. 288) Being a veteran of war, it does not do Xavier compensation of all the honorable things he has done.He has come home wounded, only left with one leg, unable to eat or sleep and addicted to morphine, a sly drug that aids him to forget about the phantom pain floating in his empty pant leg.
With all the physical strain created by the consequences of the violence at war, Xavier has also been demolished mentally by all the sights and sounds of explosions and gunfire. Xavier is haunted by the past thoughts of the war that wanders with him forever and is unable to escape what he has experienced on the battle fields of France and Belgium.He ‘’does not want to sleep and be taken back’’ (Boyden. 11) to the dreaded place with four years of his life wasted in dirt and mud.
When he does, ‘’the dead friends [he] does not want to see come to visit and accuse [Xavier] acts he did not perform”. (Boyden. 10) Even with the daily repetition of shellshock, he is in constant thought of the medicine he cherishes. He feels as if ‘’the morphine is very good, though, a warm blanket that wraps about [Xavier] like a moose robe’’ (Boyden. 11) He craves it, desires it and demands it.It is as if the only thing that may ever give Xavier the pleasure he deserves is from the proficient drug that aids him to tease his ponderous imagination.
With the accumulating build up of anguish from his leg, the more thoughts of morphine flow into his brain. Xavier has never been able to think like he did beforehand because of the destructive consequence of war. Lastly, the realization that Xavier was the cause of Elijah ‘’gone missing’’ has been a major influence for him in the worst way. It is clear Xavier misses his best friends, but he feels as he “allows [him] self to be Elijah, in this way he can live.
(Boyden. 368) He, causing the death of his own best friend has influenced thousands, if not millions of mental issues about Elijah. It creates pain when the thoughts of Elijah surface his head and in the near future will cause trouble creating new friendships. It is because of the shellshock of war that will haunt Xavier for the rest of his life, the mind-bending drug of the century to tone down the sizzling pain in his phantom leg and the unintended death of the fine Cree sniper, Elijah WhiskeyJack, that will follow Xavier into the new world after the first world war.The hardships, tribulations and long days in the trenches have never compensated to Xavier’s hard work as a British soldier. The war has caused him a great loss socially, by losing his best friend and only friend, Elijah.
With Elijah gone, only Niska is left. Xavier ‘’cries, and the whole world can hear the fear of his loneliness, when whispering goodbye to his old friend”. (Boyden. 380) He is left alone, not only to be an isolated individual, but to be a social outcast.
With the unlimited feeling of loss and regret, Xavier will again, not be able to establish new friendships in the coming future. He will feel no need to be attached to anyone that dares to come close to him and will be more to himself. Knowing this, Xavier is now also socially awkward in the sexual sense. Lisette, being Xavier’s first to make love, has in a sense betrayed him. Lisette had violated Xavier’s body and had contaminated his innocent mind.
He says “‘I do not give a shit anymore,’ I say in Cree. Let the bastards shoot me’” (Boyden. 255). The realization that during the war Lisette was a prostitute, being paid by Elijah, had victimized Xavier into being self-conscious and scared; unable to maintain a long-term relationship of love and commitment. Xavier does not care for love anymore, has given up on life and has nothing to look forward to being he has found out about the truth regarding Lisette.
His character has changed for the worst and has come home to Niska as a quiet and self absorbed person because of this event in war.
