Three Day Road: by Joseph Boyden

One of the most important scenes in the novel Three Day Road is the prologue. Elijah and Xavier are around the age of twelve while hunting a marten in the cold winter. This is a key scene for many reasons. This scene shows the friendship between the two boys and lets the reader know before they get reading the book that Elijah and Xavier have been friends for quite some time. Not only does this scene show the boy’s friendship, but the scene also allows the reader to see the leadership of Xavier and how Elijah looked up to Xavier as children. As the children are hunting, they kill the marten that they had seen. This shows that the children have the ability to hunt and to kill. This allows the reader to believe that Elijah and Xavier will most likely be great soldiers during the war.

Passage

Elijah watches. His eyes miss nothing. He takes off one mitten and bends down to touch the marten’s naked body. “We are great hunters, aren’t we, Xavier?”
“Yes, Elijah,” I say.
“We are great hunters and best friends, yes?”
“Yes,” I say.
(2)

This scene has great connection to the rest of Three Day Road. One key connection to this passage is at the end of the novel. At the end of the novel, Elijah is trying to kill Xavier, yet Xavier is forced to kill Elijah to stay alive. Elijah repeats the saying “We are great hunters and best friends, yes?” before he is killed. This shows that after everything through the war that they had been through, Elijah felt the same way he felt when he was twelve and hunting with Xavier. Seeing as the boys are “great hunters” in their childhood, that perk allowed the two to be fantastic soldiers during the war. The leadership that is shown in the prologue changes throughout the war. Elijah becomes the leader and Xavier becomes the friend who looks up to the other. The war had changed the two men and caused their leadership roles to be exchanged.