Flight By Sherman Alexie Summary

In the short stories "Flight", “A Drug Called Tradition”, as well as the novel Flight by Sherman Alexie, there are some ideas that can be seen in all three of the sources. Hiding is a main idea, whether it be from reality, identity or other things. “Flight” is the story of a young kid named John-John, John-John has spared $600 for his future, in spite of the fact that he doesn't know what he wants to do with it yet. His oldest sibling, Joseph, who is a military pilot was caught in war and has not been heard from since. John-John remembers Joseph's inspirational state of mind and delightful singing and moving. He wanders off in a fantasy land about every which way Joseph might get back home. The most awful of these fantasies is the one in which

John-John is running down the runway when Joseph lands his plane on it. Joseph has lost a finger, is covered in scars from being tormented, and he doesn't recollect who John-John is.

John-John recalls when Joseph would tease him about his double name, and together would come up with stories about why their mother named him that. One day, their mom tries to clean and disinfect the house yet John-John wouldn't go outside, even just for a couple of hours. He keeps on looking out the window daydreaming of Joseph and getting away from the reservation. Joseph holds that very positive place in John-John's heart; he was funny, danced and sang. This shows how much John-John is in denial and hiding from reality because he is essentially waiting for something that will never happen. There is nothing saying that Joseph is returning or... or is alive for that matter. From reading both the novel Flight as well as this short story; the title of "Flight" has a two sided connotation. It alludes to Joseph's employment as a pilot, as well as to John-John's longing to escape the reservation. On page 231, Alexie emphasizes how above everything else, all John-John needs to do is

getaway.
Flight is about Zits, a 15-year-old half-Native American boy with a violence loving filled passed. After he meets another kid in jail self-named Justice; they spend a lot of time together and Justice convinces Zits to start shooting in a busy bank. Zits does, and he keeps firing until he is shot in the back of the head. When that happens Zits is transported back in time to a few distinct times of American savagery. In every transport, he made into a figure in one of these scenes, each of which leads him to ponder his past and to stand up to his feelings of tension, depression, resentment, misery, and identity. In Flight, Zits had a difficult time attempting to balance his current circumstance(being a "disturbed teen") and with his cultural past. For example, the first transport when he is Hank Stork, FBI agent and is instructed to shoot an already died body. He can't bring himself to do it; it's here that he is initially confronted by the guilt of his previous actions at the bank. He tries so hard not to feel, and he wants to impress his partner but in his heart that guilt from the bank must be getting to him, he just can’t. There are many scenes in Flight that we see Zits forced to face the reality of how his actions affect others and how times change people.
“A Drug Called Tradition” is mainly about a boy named Thomas Builds-the-Fire, who Alexie shows as an unconventional boy especially in the eyes of his friends Victor and Junior.

Thomas had thrown a party with the money he gets from allowing an electric company to have poles on his land, he ends up leaving the party, and is seen walking on the side of the rode by his boy Victor, and Victor’s friend Junior who had snuck out the party to take magic mushrooms at Benjamin Lake, and Thomas joins them. Thomas sees Victor taking a horse. This is followed by an interlude, described in the first person, in which the storyteller portrays taking a horse from an encampment that belongs to "The Others". Junior takes the mushrooms while driving, and describes Thomas as dancing naked. This is trailed by yet another intermission in which the Junior depicts Thomas is dancing out of sadness after his whole tribe has been exposed to and therefore killed by smallpox. The dancing has magical powers and sends all the white people back to Europe. At the end, Victor takes the mushrooms and sees Junior is singing. In a parallel history in which Native Americans have seized control over the United States. Alexie explores what it implies for his characters to be "real Indians" (20). The characters in this piece have a weird association with their way of life. Victor, Thomas, Junior feel profound ties to their Spokane custom, but the way they live life and the encounters they have are different from that

of their of their ancestors. Alexie shows this idea at a few times in the story. Like, Victor’s love for Big Mom, the tribe's spiritual leader, and loves the drum she gives him. All this being said, he somehow keeps up a certainly unexpected separation from traditional deep sense of being, mockingly portraying the mushroom trip as "spiritual shit" (14). Victor and Junior were hiding from reality in a sense. Thomas was the first one to have the mushrooms wear off, and when he told his story about the skeletons Victor and Junior laughed and mocked him because they were still in a dazed state. Having been in that dazed state, they were incapable of really “hearing” the reality of Thomas’ story.