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Medicine Walk

Richard wagamese.

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Welcome to the LitCharts study guide on Richard Wagamese's Medicine Walk . Created by the original team behind SparkNotes, LitCharts are the world's best literature guides.

Medicine Walk: Introduction

Medicine walk: plot summary, medicine walk: detailed summary & analysis, medicine walk: themes, medicine walk: quotes, medicine walk: characters, medicine walk: symbols, medicine walk: theme wheel, brief biography of richard wagamese.

Historical Context of Medicine Walk

Other books related to medicine walk.

• Full Title: Medicine Walk
• Where Written: Canada
• When Published: 2014
• Literary Period: Contemporary
• Genre: Fiction
• Setting: British Columbia, Canada
• Climax: Eldon Starlight’s death and burial
• Antagonist: Eldon Starlight
• Point of View: Third person limited

Extra Credit for Medicine Walk

New Name. After reuniting with his biological family in his early 20s, Wagamese told his story to an Ojibway elder who gave him the name Mushkotay Beezheekee Anakwat , which means Buffalo Cloud. The elder told Wagamese that his calling was to tell stories.

New Medium. In 2017, Wagamese’s novel Indian Horse was adapted into film. The movie version of Indian Horse premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival before its theatrical release the following year. Clint Eastwood was an executive producer.

• Quizzes, saving guides, requests, plus so much more.

Medicine Walk

By richard wagamese, medicine walk essay questions.

How does Medicine Walk end? What is the significance of its ending?

Medicine Walk ends with Frank back at the farm, with the old man. Frank walks out onto the land as the sun sets. As the world is plunged into shadow and darkness by the setting sun, Frank is suspended in a kind of dream-world. It is here that he sees the ghostly figures of his ancestors: some of them riding horses, some of them gathering herbs and berries from the land. It is a diorama of existence, and Frank raises his hand to "a line of people he's never known." The significance of the novel's final scene is Frank coming to terms with all that Eldon told Frank about his family and past, and Frank honoring this past. Frank remains connected to his ancestors, despite his never knowing them, because of Eldon's stories and a shared connection to the land.

What drives Eldon to alcoholism?

Eldon is a lifelong alcoholic, but the novel does cite his one bout of sobriety: when Eldon is with Angie. Eldon first drinks because Eldon carries the pain of Jimmy's death with him, having been forced to kill Jimmy during the Korean War. Eldon also leaves his mother with her abuser when he is young, and this, too, is a motivation to drink. When Angie is pregnant, Eldon begins to drink again out of fear of being a father, his shame, and his inability to discuss his emotions. Overall, a large factor in Eldon's lifelong drinking is his being unable to forgive himself.

Describe the significance of the land in Medicine Walk .

The land is immensely significant in Medicine Walk , for a myriad of reasons. For one, the land is the one place Frank has always felt at home; for a boy who does not fit in at school and who desires to know more about himself, the land provides solace in its familiarity. The land is also important because it establishes a deep emotional connection between Frank and the old man. The old man taught Frank all he knows about the land, how to respect it, how to honor it. It is through the land that the old man and Frank forge their father-son connection, despite the old man not being Frank's biological father. Lastly, the land connects Frank to his ancestors and to their stories. Eldon tells Frank stories of his past while the two of them are out on the land, and so the land becomes a site for remembering the past.

How does racism function within the novel? Is racism overtly present in the novel?

Racism is overtly present in Medicine Walk when Frank and Eldon leave town, and the townspeople openly stare at them. This is an instance of racism because Eldon and Frank are made into a spectacle by the townspeople because of their Indigeneity. Otherwise, racism functions covertly within the novel, although racism is very much present. When Eldon was young, he and his parents had to gather firewood and sell it in order to survive. The immense poverty that Eldon grew up in is an example of structural racism, as Canadian and US governments kept Indigenous communities impoverished through putting them on reservations, stealing Indigenous lands, and the institution of residential schools.

What is Becka Charlie's role within the novel?

While Becka Charlie is a seemingly peripheral character in Medicine Walk , she is important to the novel's plot for her provision of medicine and her advice to Frank. Becka effectively reframes how Frank views Eldon's stories, as Becka tells Frank that Eldon did a brave thing in telling his story. Becka also provides Eldon with medicine that helps with Eldon's alcohol withdrawal. Becka's medicine enables Eldon's storytelling because it keeps Eldon alive for longer, meaning Frank gets to know his father's history. In these two acts, Becka assumes a healing role within the novel.

Medicine Walk Questions and Answers

The Question and Answer section for Medicine Walk is a great resource to ask questions, find answers, and discuss the novel.

Why did frank had to come back to Nechako On pg:173?

What chapter are you referring to?

Medicine walk

In chapter 17, the story catapults back into the Korean War, where Jimmy and Eldon sit in the trenches.

Please tell me a one good question about Medicine Walk By Richard Wagamese from pg: 169-210.

Study Guide for Medicine Walk

Medicine Walk study guide contains a biography of Richard Wagamese, literature essays, quiz questions, major themes, characters, and a full summary and analysis.

• About Medicine Walk
• Medicine Walk Summary
• Character List

Medicine Walk

73 pages • 2 hours read

A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more. For select classroom titles, we also provide Teaching Guides with discussion and quiz questions to prompt student engagement.

Introduction

Before Reading

Reading Context

During Reading

Reading Questions & Paired Texts

After Reading

Discussion/Analysis Prompt

Essay Questions

Exam Questions

Exam Answer Key

Use these essay questions as writing and critical thinking exercises for all levels of writers, and to build their literary analysis skills by requiring textual references throughout the essay.

Differentiation Suggestion: For English learners or struggling writers, strategies that work well include graphic organizers, sentence frames or starters, group work, or oral responses.

Scaffolded Essay Questions

Student Prompt: Write a short (1-3 paragraph) response using one of the bulleted outlines below. Cite details from the text over the course of your response that serve as examples and support.

1. Eldon frequently fails to take responsibility for his actions early in the novel.

• Is Eldon the “victim of circumstance” that he claims to be? ( topic sentence )
• Explain the ways in which Eldon is a victim of circumstance in the novel, then explain whether Eldon could have overcome his circumstances had he had direction in how to do so.
• In your concluding sentence or sentences, describe why Eldon’s mentality may contribute to his difficulty in rising above his circumstances.

2. Stories are an important element of the novel, not only to the Indigenous people but also between Frank and Eldon.

• What function do stories play in the novel? ( topic sentence )

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Themes of Medicine Walk

We contemplate our thoughts and writers’ ideas by reading the writings of history’s most fascinating minds. Reading is a practice in empathy or walking in someone else’s shoes for a moment, and it trains our imaginations to dream big. Character, setting, theme, and world perspective are essential considerations for all fiction writers. While these components determine whether a novel succeeds or fails, historical fiction has the added task of bringing the past to life. Richard Wagamese is regarded as a significant stylist in contemporary American literature. His style is full of emotions and is developed substantially through the use of phrases, and it is characterized by short plain structured sentences and colloquial language. Richard’s novel Medicine Walk illustrates his enthusiasm for life and the pursuit of adventure, as well as the themes of loss, connection to nature, and the importance of stories.

The literary theme in the novel Medicine Walk is the central idea and the underlying meaning Richard explores in the novel. The theme expresses the truth about human behavior and thought in a way that words cannot. It allows the readers to empathize with the characters and their hardships and become emotionally invested in the ending. The theme of a work of fiction is its perspective on life and how people act, but it is not provided directly to the reader; instead, it is designed to teach the reader. Medicine Walk is a literary fiction that tells the narrative of Franklin Starlight, an unusually mature 16-year-old who an elderly family friend raises after being abandoned by his drunken father. On the other hand, he enjoys the virtual peace of not dealing with his immediate relatives.

Medicine Walk themes are essential because they are the story’s reason and idea. Franklin’s journey toward acceptance and forgiveness of his drunk father, a journey that begins to heal the traumas of a parentless childhood, is symbolized by the title medicine walk. The theme of loss is just one of the many parts that make up the story, exemplified by the protagonist. The central characters in Medicine Walk are confronted with significant losses, to which they respond in a variety of ways. Eldon Starlight has suffered several losses, one of which is his estrangement from his mother, also his greatest friend.

Eldon’s love, Angie, dies in labor due to neglect, and she was killed in the Korean War. Eldon’s drinking impacts his wife since it contributed to her death. “She had a chance if she had made it here in time” (222), the doctor explains to Eldon as he approaches him as Eldon drinks to cope with his losses. Bunky, on the other hand, copes with the loss of Angie by deciding to raise her kid, Franklin, because Eldon is unqualified to care for him. “He said he would raise ya cuz he owed Angie,” Eldon says when he initially brings Frank to Bunky’s farm. I did not get it, so I asked him, and all he did was stare down at you for the longest time. Then he said she “brought him back to life.” Bunky copes with his loss by giving Frank life the same way that Angie had given him life.

On the other hand, Franklin must bear all of these losses, including his father’s death. “Sometimes when something gets taken away from you, it seems like there is a hole at your center where you can feel the wind blow through,” Bunky says as Frank returns home from burying his father. “I always went to where the wind blows,” (170) he tells Frank, to cope with his loss. The novel implies that genuine love often leads to significant losses through the relationship between love and sadness. As a result, people react to grief in different ways: accepting the loss, which leads to increased love for others, as in the case of the older man, or resisting it, which leads to increased anguish, as in the case of Eldon.

Franklin’s relationship to nature is another central theme in the story; due to Bunky’s upbringing, he is at ease in nature, which provides him with peace and a link to his ancestors. Both Eldon and Bunky have suffered traumatic losses, but while Eldon reacts by turning to alcohol, he respects his loss by rearing Franklin. For both Frank and the old guy, nature is a source of comfort and security. The countryside of the land in British Columbia is nearly a character in and of itself, where the land is the kid’s closest companion aside from the old guy. He defines the open land as a “genuine location where a person can learn to see properly—whether by pursuing an animal for hours through the forest or simply understanding the rhythms of it” since it is “free from artificial structures like a school rather than childhood hobbies” (290), he finds calm and contentment.

Regardless of Frank’s academic challenges, the older man teaches him to cherish what is true, as the terrain had become what the old man referred to as accurate by the time they got down the other side. Eldon has never been able to connect with nature in the same way for the majority of his life, and he suffers immensely as a result. Because he struggled to live as a child, Eldon does not have Frank’s attachment to nature. His family was very busy looking for jobs to hunt and live off the land, so he spent his time in the woods salvaging wood to sell. As a result, he spent his life bouncing around from place to place, never settling down.

Medicine Walk is based on several different memories and story threads. The central theme follows the little boy traveling into the wilderness with Eldon’s dying father. Along the way, Frank recalls experiences from his childhood bond with his father, and the father, more importantly, reveals memories from his own life. Eldon only has the father’s stories to pass on to the child before he dies, and Frank only has his mother’s stories, who died before he was born. When the child contemplates his father’s stories, he finds it challenging to piece together disparate memories. He tells the older man his father’s stories when he returns home following Eldon’s death, as he repeats the rhythms of their life together.

The Medicine Walk novel indicates that no one’s stories are their own and that people’s self-understanding is dependent on the stories others tell them. It is based on the kid’s process of hearing his father’s stories and hesitantly absorbing them into his life that Eldon spends his life avoiding levels because they remind him of his sad background. Storytelling is crucial to being a whole person. It not only has an emotional impact on him, but it also hinders him from opening up and chatting to others. Frank loved the stories his mother told him by candlelight as a boy, but the stories attracted a lover who abused her and drove Eldon out of his mother’s life for good. Eldon begins to believe that stories only bring suffering due to this, and he begins to hold his own stories inside and becomes quiet about them.

Though he opposes it, Angie begins to influence Eldon’s perspective on stories, and he takes a long time to act on it. She observes Eldon’s inner monologue and advises that hearing a narrative “takes you back to a story you have been carrying for a long time.” (280). Frank gives Bunky the entire narrative of Eldon’s life at the end of the book because Eldon is no longer alive to tell it himself. It indicates that Frank has absorbed Becka’s lesson—that people are, in the end, their stories—and has recognized the importance of tales in the healing process. Hearing Eldon’s experiences have given him a more profound sense of wholeness, and he now offers Bunky the same opportunity, bringing things complete circle.

In conclusion, Medicine Walk is a deliberate period set aside for delving deeply into a particular subject, entering a condition of profound listening, and connecting with nature as a powerful mirror. Through the channel of open time and spontaneous travel in a natural setting, Richard’s characters in Medicine Walk novel urge the readers to examine their relationship with nature and the characters’ life paths. The three main themes in Medicine Walk, love and loss, connection to nature, and the concept of memories and stories, all exhibit this

Works Cited

Wagamese, Richard.  Medicine Walk: A Novel . Milkweed editions, 2015.

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