The past makes the present and the present makes the upcoming future. In the short story, “This is What It Means to Say Phoenix, Arizona” by Sherman Alexie, there are two main characters, Victor and Thomas Builds-the –Fire, and their identities represent the past and present lives for what they think it is right or wrong. Victor and Thomas Builds-the-Fire are friends of each other, but they did not get together until Victor’s father died in Phoenix, Arizona from Spoke, Washington where they lived. In the Spoke, Washington there is a reservation where they live and they start their story that those two characters have opposite identities, each of them and those different identities that help each other throughout the story and have a deeper …show more content…
Their identity has meaning of life and death. The identities that both Victor and Thomas hold contain a meaning of life and death that it needed for discovering a new future for them, also Victor and Thomas described the cycle of life and death while they discussed each other about before they toss Victor’s Father’s ashes into the water.
Thomas Builds-the-Fire’s identity is a storyteller, but inside meaning of storyteller Thomas represents the traditional character who reminisce the past and lost traditions. Thomas’s name describes that he is born to be a storyteller because while building the fire people usually talk about old stories from the past, but people from the past believed the storytellers when they talk about the future or what people can do. Thomas thought of crazy things for telling his endless stories,
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This makes Victor to be a modern character who only think about himself. Victor did something only if it might help his future and get benefit from something he think it is good. Victor’s father had a savings account that is waiting to be collected, so Victor tried to get his father’s account and he prepared to go to Phoenix, Arizona where father died (Alexie, 21). Money symbolizes Victor’s selfishness and negative feelings. Victor does not think about others, but he only thinks about himself, and has negative thoughts while he lives his life. Victor represents the modern people because people from the present always think about themselves and does not care about the past, so money that victor’s father had was very important to Victor to live his life. Victor said to Thomas that he will pay the money back, but he does not want to give the money from his father’s account to Thomas. After they retrieved, Victor gave half of his father’s ashes to Thomas (Alexie, 30). Victor’s father’s ash symbolizes the friendship between Victor and Thomas because they both have memories with Victor’s father and they both want to toss his ashes into the water. They both wanted to do same thing, but their meanings are different. Victor thinks negative ways about toss his father’s ashes into water and described that letting things go after they stopped having any use (Alexie, 30).
The imagery of fire continues in the story; the building of their fires, how the man molds the fires, and how they stoke the fire. When the boy gets sick the father is referred to many times of how he builds and rekindles the fire. This actual fire is a symbol for the fire that the man and the boy discuss carrying within in them. The man fights to save his son and the fire within the boy
In the film Smoke Signals, the director Chris Eyre shows the audience how story telling played an essential role in Native American culture. Throughout the movie, Thomas is always telling stories with passion and humor, which Victor hates due to the fact that most of the stories were good memories with Thomas and Victors father. Being that Victor and his mom were abused and abandoned by their father when Victor was young, therefore he had mixed feelings about his father. However, the movie would not have been the same without the story telling of Thomas. In This is What It
The attitude of Victors mother reflects th... ... middle of paper ... ... ment haunts him through the rest of the novel. Victor is weak and it is only near the end of the novel that he attempts to face his creature and to destroy it to restore nature's order. Finally the pursuit of his creation destroys him.
In life, one goes through different experiences which makes and shapes us into the person who we become. Whether something as little as a "hello" by a crush or a death in a family, they contribute to the difference, as they are all equal in importance. In the play Hamlet by William Shakespeare, the protagonist Hamlet struggles throughout his life as he is in search of his true identity. The Webster's dictionary, under the second definition, defines identity as "The set of behavioral or personal characteristics by which an individual is recognizable as a member of a group." As life only moves forward for Hamlet, he struggles to find his place in life, nonetheless to revenge the murder of his father.
The vivid similarities between the two tragic characters are driven by their isolation from the secluded world, which refuses to accept those who are different into society, by hatred, and most importantly by the absence of motherly figures in both Victor’s and the Creature’s lives. As Victor had stated, “I seemed to have lost all soul or sensation but for this one pursuit.” (Shelley 40) as he described that he lost all touch with the world due to his work. Both figures seem to strongly despise one another yet strangely enough, they both also despise themselves for their wrong and disastrous actions. Family ties and vengefulness are truly one of the most significant aspects affecting the resemblance of both Victor and the Creature. At a young age, Victor was left without his mother after her death and as a result, he never got to experience the true feelings of a mother’s warm touch and love. “She died calmly...it is so long before the mind can persuade itself that she whom we saw every day and whose every existence appeared a part of our own can have departed forever and the sound of a voice so familiar and dear to the ear can be hushed, never more to be heard.” (Shelley, 29) Just like Victor, in his own time, the Creature never got to experience not only the love of a mother but the love of a father as well. These driven characters thrive for the same goals, feed of similar pain, and feel the same
Thomas is a hero because the second is that he follows the hero’s journey like ordeal, Death, and Rebirth. The elevator comes back up with a girl and some pipes filled with something and the girl makes Thomas remember more about himself. Later on, they use the needle on Alby and it heals him but he won't speak. Then later on, when its night, the doors don’t close and the grievers start coming and killing people. This is a wake-up call for Thomas that and some people else since Alby is dead by the grievers. Thomas takes the lead to get out of the maze and some people follow him like a leader. When Thomas says something to the people that are left in the glade it sparks something a leadership role for Thomas. “We can't stay here forever.” When Thomas says this to the glade the people are deciding is it ok to break the rules that they have followed for years and go into the maze to try and find a way out with Thomas leading them. In This Ordeal, Death and Rebirth people die yes but Thomas did become more of a leader of the effects that played
A reckless abandonment cost Victor and others, their lives. The Creation killed everyone Victor loved as vengeance for his treatment and isolation. Nevertheless, Victor chose to keep his knowledge of his own doing a secret and watched in guilt as many people, including his own family, died. Victor’s ignorance becomes the
“Smoke Signals” is a movie that describes living conditions for Native Americans. Victor and Thomas are the main characters in the movie. Victor is a tough Indian guy who is hard to handle, even though he has a special attitude towards his mother. Thomas is a nerd, who is smart, and he enjoys telling stories to anyone. Victor’s father, Arnold Joseph, causes a fire accidently on Independence Day in 1976 on the reservation in Idaho in which Thomas’s parents died, but he miraculously saved Tomas from the fire. Even though Victor hates his father because of father’s addiction to alcohol, he manages to forgive him at the end of the movie.
Victor knew he was a Native American that lived on the reservation. However, as he has grown up, it seems he has forgotten the tribal ties of the Native Americans. The people of that culture consider everyone in the tribe to be family and they are not ashamed of who they are and where they come from. Towards the end of the fictional narrative it is said, “Victor was ashamed of himself. Whatever happened to the tribal ties, the sense of community? The only real thing he shared with anybody was a bottle and broken dreams. He owed Thomas something, anything” (519). At the end of the story, Victor has finally realize that he is acting self absorbed. He realizes that this is not who he wants to be and he should not be ashamed to talk to Thomas Builds-a-Fire. Remembering his tribal ties, Victor gives half of his father 's ashes to Thomas. By doing that, Victor is thanking Thomas in his own way. Victor said, “listen, and handed Thomas the cardboard box which contained half of his father. “I want you to have this” (519). Individuals on the reservation thought Thomas was just a madman with weird stories. But in reality he was always true to his tribal identity and has even taught Victor how to get back to that. For example Thomas says, “I’m going to travel to Spokane Falls one last time and toss these ashes into the water. And your father will rise like a salmon, leap over the bridge, over me, and find his way
Victor grows up in school both on the American Indian Reservation, then later in the farm town junior high. He faces serious discrimination at both of these schools, due to his Native American background. This is made clear in both of the schools by the way the other students treat him as well as how his teachers treat him. His classmates would steal his glasses, trip him, call him names, fight him, and many other forms of bullying. His teachers also bullied him verbally. One of his teachers gave him a spelling test and because he aced it, she made him swallow the test. When Victor was at a high school dance and he passed out on the ground. His teacher approached him and the first thing he asked was, “What’s that boy been drinking? ...
evil; while Victor acts out of greed. Victor’s self-centered behavior effects everyone in the novel; he hurts his family’s
Zadie Smith’s White Teeth epigraph “What is past is prologue,” means that what has occurred in the past has led up to what is happening in the future or present. Smith illustrates the struggles three families go through for identity, legacy, striving for a good future while holding onto the traditions of the past, and maintaining ones religion or beliefs. Through the text, the thematic significance of the past occurs often with the recurring flashbacks which sometimes goes as far back to 1857; with Samad’s mutinous great-grandfather and 1907 with Irie’s past about her great-grandmother and white colonial great-grandfather.
Victor’s initial isolation as a child foreshadows the motif of detachment that occurs throughout the novel. As Victor Frankenstein recounts his informative tale to a seafaring Robert Walton, he makes it known that he was a child of nobility; however it is sadly transparent that combined with insufficient parenting Victor’s rare perspective on life pushes him towards a lifestyle of conditional love. Children are considered symbolic of innocence but as a child Victor’s arrogance was fueled by his parents. With his family being “one of the most
"The Story of an Hour" and "To Build a Fire" both concern different types of conflict. 'Person vs self' and 'person vs nature' are the two main conflicts that are discussed. Both of which reveal hidden characteristics and traits of the characters. It may seem as if both the stories are polar opposites, one regarding feelings and the other regarding adventure, yet they are quite alike holding similar morals. Even though the stories date back approximately a hundred years ago, much of it is still relevant even today.
In life, everyone experiences a time of hardship, and for the most part, those affected find methods of overcoming the adversity. The idea of getting through hardship is best reflected in; Sherman J. Alexie’s story “This Is What It Means to Say Phoenix, Arizona” (274). In the story, victor whose father had recently died from a heart attack has to travel to phoenix Arizona to reclaim his father’s ashes and his truck. Victor is joined by his former childhood friend “Thomas Builds-the-fire”, who finances the trip to phoenix since Victor did not have the means. They drove back truck from phoenix to the reservation. Throughout the trip, Thomas is always telling stories mostly reminiscing about their childhood. It is through Thomas stories that we learn much about Victor’s father. Through the use of symbolism, and character development, Alexie conveys the idea that, when someone is experiencing an adversity, reconnecting and embracing the past may lead to a discovery of a brighter future.