Themes In Flight By Sherman Alexie

“Losing a leg was like having to learn how to suck in air through the pores of my skin. Somehow I survived, but each breath was painful” (Draanen 157). Jessica, from Wendelin Van Draanen’s The Running Dream, loved to run. Which is why when she lost her leg she described it as stated above, like learning how to take in air through her skin. Her leg was a part of her, something she loved to use, and when it was gone she felt off balance, both metaphorically and actually. I felt this way when someone very close to me died. His name was Zackary, or Zack for short, and he was my cat. When he died of a thickened heart wall and a thrombus collapse at the age of 1 and a half, I felt as if I had lost something vital to me. A body part that was necessary

Australian author, Craig Silvey successfully portrays hero's and anti-heroes through the use of multiple themes in Jasper Jones. This is manipulated through his use of different language conventions and features. Charlie Bucktin the protagonist in the novel is perceived as a hero through the novel with his innocent nature. He is a boy with great intelligence and humour in which he found the strength to defeat hurdles which intricate his fear. Silvey proves Charlie to be a hero through his heartfelt and mysterious novel within the themes of fear and innocence, understanding and sympathy.

Throughout the book “Flight” by Sherman Alexie the main character Zits is in search of where he belongs and why people have mistreated him throughout his life. In the midst of the action in the novel, Zits begins to experience character jumps, where he is trapped in the body of different characters. Each character jump that Zits has contributes to his growth into becoming more mature by allowing him to expand his perspectives and reflect on his own ideology. The most significant jumps are into the bodies of the little Indian boy, Jimmy the pilot, and his father. These jumps force Zits to develop his present ideas about revenge, violence, and forgiveness.

Relationships between people can change lives forever. For instance, the relationship between a parent and a child is one of the most important ones because that is where our consciousness about love, trust, and assurance comes from. Depending on the relationship, it can either benefit or negatively affect the child’s future, since little children always look up to their parents as role models. In the novel, Into the Wild, by Jon Krakauer, Chris McCandless is negatively affected by his relationship with his parents. Chris McCandless’ parent, on the outside, appear to want Chris to be a successful student. Meanwhile, in the inside appearance, especially Walter, was an abusive father. This reflected a double life and could cause a devastating

Flight is a novel about a teenage Native American boy, named Zits because of his face, gets moved around from foster home to foster home, “crashing” through each one, and has closed his mind to the idea that some foster parents are trying to help him. Then, later in the book, after he shoots thirty or so people in a bank, is transported through time and different bodies, and learns how to turn his life around with the knowledge he acquires from what he sees and does in these different bodies. In one especially striking scene, Zits has traveled into the body of a young Indian boy at war. He wakes up in the middle of a large Indian camp. He then realizes that

Flight, written by Sherman Alexie, is about a 15 year-old orphan named Zits. Because of his past, Zits has become full of pain, and he has an tendency to respond with violence. Zits has a history of being a delinquent. When arrested, Zits is put in a jail cell with a 17 year old boy named Justice who, later on in the story, convinces Zits to fire in a bank overflowing with people of all ages, colors, and size. After being shot in the head, Zits is then transported back in time to several periods of American violence where he embodies a person in each of these scenes, each of which cause him to look back on his past and face head on, all of his problems with himself concerning his feelings of apprehension, shame, identity, and loneliness.

Flight is a novel by Sherman Alexie that tell the story of a distressed Native American teenage boy, who has sadly stretched his breaking point after years of ill-treatment at the hands of adults, named Michael but prefers to be called Zits, “Call me Zits. Everybody calls me Zits. That is not my real name, of course. My real name is not important.” (Zits, p.1). Zits was left to his own devices at the age of six when his mother died of breast cancer and his father did not stick around much after he was born and left him. “I get into arguments and fistfights with everybody. I get so angry that I go blind and deaf and mute” (Zits, p.8)Zits is a violent person and takes out his anger on anyone because he has been in and out of the foster care system, none of which felt like family, with foster parents who only cared about the government cheque. He feels left out from the rest of the society mostly because of his half-Indian heritage and his abuse. Because of this, he is easily persuaded into committing crimes.

Sherman Alexie’s “Flight” is a book about a time traveling orphan named Zits, guilty about shooting a busy bank. His whole life was built on wanting to escape his foster homes and witnessing acts of violence done to others and himself. He confesses that the only person that ever truly loved him died when he was 7. His alcoholic father chose drinks rather than his own family. Because of the evil in his life, he becomes that evil himself. He becomes somebody easy for himself to hate and thinks any ounce of compassion towards him is fake. His form of revenge on the universe is shooting mass amounts of people. Not even a few minutes into his shooting spree, he is shot and gone before he hits the ground. He then experiences the lives of an FBI agent, a young Indian, an old French soldier, a pilot that trained a terrorist, and his own cowardly father. Sherman Alexie’s telling of Zits emotional experiences makes you weep and you are forced to learn along with Zits. Through his time traveling journey and experiences through others’ lives, he learns lessons about life and the importance of finding the good rather than the bad.

Betrayal hits the most not when by a friend, but by a loved one. In the novel, Flight, by Sherman Alexie, a half Native-American half Irish teen calling himself Zits, struggles with moving from abusive foster home to the next while in the constant search for a real family, real parents. In the act of crime, Zits is shot which transports him into a cycle of different bodies portraying different themes that majorly affects zits life and understanding of the world. The scene in which Zits meets a boy named Justice develops the theme of betrayal by portraying Justice, who seems like a very wise, trustworthy friend, but ends up betraying Zits which changes his view of the world forever.

    Flight is a major theme in Toni Morrison's Song of Solomon. “Flight echoes throughout the story as a reward, as a hoped-for skill, as an escape, and as proof of intrinsic worth; however, by the end this is not so clear a proposition”(Lubiano 96). Song of Solomon ends with ‘flight’ but in such a way that the act allows for multiple interpretations: suicide; "real" flight and then a wheeling attack on his "brother"; or "real" flight and then some kind of encounter with the (possibly) killing arms of his brother.

Clearly, the significant silences and the stunning absences throughout Morrison's texts become profoundly political as well as stylistically crucial. Morrison describes her own work as containing "holes and spaces so the reader can come into it" (Tate 125), testament to her rejection of theories that privilege j the author over the reader. Morrison disdains such hierarchies in which the reader as participant in the text is ignored: "My writing expects, demands participatory reading, and I think that is what literature is supposed to do. It's not just about telling the story; it's about involving the reader ... we (you, the reader, and I, the author) come together to make this book, to feel this

But they’re not here and haven’t been for years, so I’m not really Irish or Indian. I’m a blank sky, a human solar eclipse.” Zits character is unable to connect with others or express emotion as a normal human being, because without a way to properly identify himself, it’s as if he is not living, able only to travel through time and live through the minds and bodies of others. In one of his time traveling experiences we see Zit encountering emotions and understanding the importance of connections. “I can feel his happiness. It makes me happy” (p. 116). After Zits is able to time travel and gain knowledge about native customs, family connections, and have the ability to experience emotion, he begins to understand his own identity. At the end of the novel Zits is able to grasp the importance of being true to yourself and embracing who you are, despite what the world around you conditions you to think. “I know that the world is still a cold and cruel place. I know that people will always go to war against each other. I know that I am a betrayer. But I’m beginning to think I’ve been given a chance… ‘Michael,’ I say. ‘My real name is Michael” (p. 181).

Have you ever been in situation where your life was entirely based on your own actions, been stuck in life or death situation with little sanctuary? These questions revolve around the book Hatchet by Gary Paulsen. Thirteen year old Brian is the sole survivor of a devastating plane crash in the middle of the canadian wilderness after the pilot had a heart attack. For a harsh 54 days, Brian pulls an amazing feat by living by himself with only his wits and very little knowledge on how to survive. Overall, one of the main reasons Brian lived through his trials and tribulations is by realizing the world around him and adjusting to suit the violent wilderness. Brian had several Aha moments throughout, all of them helping him realize that mistakes weren’t a affordable and helping him develop and adapt to the world around him.

The story “Flight Patterns” is a short story in which Sherman Alexie, the author, presents Native American literature which is new around this time in age. William Cline, the main character represents your stereotype native American. This story takes place post 9/11; therefore, the level of security has been increased greatly along with the amount of hostility towards darker skinned people. William describes how he feels out of place because he has all the traits of a native American but he feels likes he needs to try in order to keep up with his culture. He points out that his wife, Marie, is the one that lives up to the title and has no cares in the world. Her culture comes natural to her and she is not self-conscious about her appearance unlike her husband. Their daughter Grace, has a little bit of both parents. She has the carelessness of her mother and yet she strives to be like her dad as well. William’s family lives in Seattle and they are one of the first native American families to settle there; therefore, racism is a very touchy subject.

The novel “Flight” was a very interesting story about a young boy who seems to be lost in life and has an identity crisis which leads him down the wrong path and makes the poor decision to shoot up a bank. To have the boy come to the conclusion what he was doing was wrong Sherman Alexie sends him to different places and times to show teach him something more, almost like the Scrooge and the many ghosts he encounters in “A Christmas Carol”. I will discuss a few of his “flights” analyzing each flight and his journey from Zits to Michael through emotional encounters and tough lessons.