Martha’s Vineyard becomes a place of refuge and new attachment for Egga after his flight from the Shubenacadie residential school, but it does not erase the history he carries. His life there leads to a proposal accepted by Brenda Hingham, whose declaration that she is marrying an enemy turns the island into the setting for an intimate conflict over Mi’kmaw identity and the legacy of oppression.

Refuge and a New Life

Egga came to Martha’s Vineyard as a runaway boy, escaping the residential Indian school at Shubenacadie in Nova Scotia. On the island he found work as a fisherman and later met Brenda Hingham. The account marks a transition from escape to the beginnings of a settled life, without suggesting that the flight from the school or its consequences have been left behind.

A Marriage Marked by History

When Egga proposed, Brenda accepted, but framed the decision in adversarial terms: “I am marrying an enemy.” Egga asked how he could be her enemy. Their exchange makes their marriage an immediate site of disagreement rather than an uncomplicated resolution. Brenda’s language invokes a conflict that Egga does not yet recognize in the same way she does.

Gender, Identity, and Competing Histories

After World War II, women were moving into work traditionally done by men, and feminist ideas were circulating. Brenda regarded this change as a release from historical bondage and looked at her husband combatively as she tried to explain the parallel she saw. Egga, whom the narrative describes as unaware of that parallel, could not connect women’s emergence from oppression with his own life and his renunciation of Mi’kmaw particularity. Martha’s Vineyard thus links his earlier escape from an institution of assimilation to a later domestic argument about liberation, while showing that shared language about oppression does not guarantee shared understanding.