Difference between Reservation Blues and Smoke Signals
Who said that a book can not become a great movie? If that is true, then that point was definitely shattered by Sherman Alexie. Alexie is the author of Reservation Blues, and with his aid, his book was turned into a movie which was called Smoke Signals. Reservation Blues and Smoke Signals can be viewed as the “Ying” and the “Yang”. With many similarities and a few differences between the two, Reservation Blues and Smoke Signals have a parallel connection which makes it a must to read the book and view the movie to have a sense of total understanding and completion. With more details in Reservation Blues, Smoke Signals surely did not lag behind with the basic message and theme, even though there were other numerous minor themes for the two together and separately. The main theme between Reservation Blues and Smoke Signals is that even though problems may occur, one must overcome the adversities to try and find out who they truly are and their purpose in life to become a better person. The biggest theme that shows up in the Smoke Signals and Reservation Blues is the thought and feeling of being abanded. In Smoke Signals Victor unquestionably felt abanded by his father Arnold. He wanted his father to be with him and
From stereotypes, white supremacy can be derived. That is the case in Smoke Signals. It was when Tom and Victor were going to get the remains of Victor’s dad Arnold. They got on the bus and everyone just looked at them like they were out of place. After a short pit stop for probably a bathroom break, they proceeded to get back into their previous seats but two white men took them over. Thomas and Victor told them that they were sitting in their seats implying that they want it back. The two white men basically said no and said a stereotypical remark. Not wanting to cause any problems, the just moved to different seats. A little thing such as taking someone else’s seat is showing supremacy over anther person. In the case, the people who are acting with supremacy are white. For Thomas, Victor, the reservation, and other Native Americans, it is going to be difficult to overcome the adversity of stereotypes and supremacy from any race. They are going to feel less than human, second best. They are going to see that there is no way of escaping stereotypes except to stay on the reservation in order to stay normal and not be persecuted. In Reservation Blues, Victor also feels abanded. Not only does he feel abanded by his father, like Smoke Signals, but also by his best friend Junior. After being through so much like going to Seattle for a dream, drinking, and chasing white women, Victor could only have the feeling of being alone. He missed him so much that even talked to the dead, the ghost of Junior. Junior kept asking him questions. “Are you going to miss me?” “I’m going to miss getting drunk with you,” Victor said. Junior responded, “Oh, yeah enit? We had some good times, didn’t we?” But like any good and noisy friend, Victor wanted to know something. “Why’d you do it...? You know, shoot yourself. In the head?” Junior tried to change the subject by talking about how people in the Trading Post were talking about how he
Some topics in this essay:
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Trading Post,
Reservation Blues,
Thomas Victor,
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Victor Junior,
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Approximate Word count = 1337
Approximate Pages = 5 (250 words per page double spaced)
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