Elijah and Xavier Disconnecting

     Throughout the time Elijah and Xavier spend on the front lines in the book Three Day Road their friendship and brotherhood slowly deteriorates. Xavier is slowly falling behind Elijah because Elijah is willing to surrender his beliefs and adapt to the "soldiers' life".

     Elijah, as the book progresses, is more and more addicted to morphine which helps him relax from all the suffering he endured or witnessed.  I think he chose to do this because of dealing with the blood and gore, many dead bodies on the battlefield, screams of pain and loss, and losing friends became to hard to bear on his own.

     Elijah, at the start of the book, was more attached to Xavier at the beginning of the war but as they got there the dominant language is English. Elijah became friends with some soldiers fairly quickly with his quick learning of English but Xavier fell behind and could not include himself into Elijah's new friends.

      During the war, Elijah becomes more independent and arrogant believing he is invincible and that nothing can hurt him. He is anxious to work alone even though him and Xavier work as a team.  "Elijah likes to go out of the trench at night and do his own patrols. Just him and the mud."(page 136, Joseph Boyden) Elijah and Xavier's friendship has slowly fallen apart.