as a helpless and innocent lamb among the wolves of the wilderness.” And the child was seen sitting next to her “mangled” mother. King went on to disprove the statements Eddy made by pointing out that the bodies were above the Breens and their company because the fire had melted the snow around them, and states, “The picture of the infant Graves baby fondling the body of its mutilated mother clearly has the mark of pulp fiction…the picture ignores the fact that the Breens, allegedly sunning themselves and ignoring the infants and older children about them, had managed to nurture nine children in that pit for many days—with food, prayer, and the comforts of human touch.” King wanted to enlighten readers of the sacrifice and morality of Patrick and Margaret Breen. He states that one author “had little patience with any evidence pointing to the heroism of the Breens and other ethnics in the Donner Party…” King believed many of previous accounts of the Donner Party were biased. I believe he did an excellent job of disproving what was formerly said regarding the Breens. The author tries very hard in this book not to be biased, since he is so often referring to the biased and racist’s points of view of other authors. However, I do believe that in some ways King does tend to be a bit biased, thus influencing the book’s subject matters. Many times in the book King comments on the difficult decisions Patrick and Margaret Breed had to face. “Breen’s words also reveal the moral dilemma in which he and his wife were placed, although Breen does not philosophize about it. The terrible question! What to do when giving to others would mean starvation and death for one’s own children? The Breens seem to have struck something of a balance. They sometimes refused but they often gave.” King constantly is making the Breens seem almost saintly. He w...
