The Englishmen's Boy

Essay by PaperNerd ContributorCollege, Undergraduate August 2001

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The Englishman's Boy is Guy Vanderhaeghe's new work of fiction. It is a historical novel which describes 19th centtury Canadian West, specifically the Cypress Hills Slaughter in conjunction with the 1920's Hollywood and its most glamorous preiod of numerous celebrities and powerful directors.

The novel deals with the tragic life of two young man who witness the cruelty of our civiliation, but remained true to their principles. The two characters that are being examined in this work are Harry Vincent and the Englishman's boy. Their personallyties are similar in aspects of morality. Harry's actions showed that he rather be true with himself then earn more money by changeing the truth, hance his desision to quit his job. At the same time he is not affraid to keep his principles even though he has to think about his sick mother. Just like Harry did not alow the outside evil to change his princples to tell the truth, the Englishman's boy did not want to do anything for which people could give him a bad name.

Although he might seem rough he really was a compasionate individual. He took pity on the sufering Indian woman. Although both Harry Vincent and the Englishman's boy meet great evil throughout their lives, they always stay true to there princples which is clearly shown in their behaviours, actions and personal characteristics, such as pride, pity, and compasion.

One of the actions which showed that Harry decides in a critical siutialion that it was more important for him to stay true to his moral principles, was when he decided to quit his job. Although he provided all the information about the old west as requested by his employer, his boss Chance did not end up fullfilling his side of the job. Chance desided to alter the...