The second section of this book has continued to grip me in place and force me to continue reading. In these chapters, there is one specific story told by Thomas that intrigues me. This story is about Thomas's father Samuel and Lester playing a game of basketball with a group of cops. The introduction of this story plays against the reader's current perception of Thomas Builds-The-Fire's faather Samuel. Up to the story, Samuel is known too be a heavy drunk and disgrace to the Spokane reservation. Thomas reveals to the reader however that before his drinking days, Samuel was a strong basketball player as he states "'He was such a good basketball player that all the Spokanes wanted him to be more. When any Indian shows the slightest hint of talent in any direction, the rest of the tribe starts expecting Jesus'" (Alexie 97). Thomas reveals that during high school, his father was the top basketball player in the school and would be the reason that his team won. He was so great at the game that otheers compared him to Jesus. After high school, there was nothing left for him because of the absence of basketball in his life. Consequently, he began drinking. The use of the story aftterwarrds is evry powerful, negaating any current belief about Samuel there may be so far by the reader. in this story, he is considered to be arrogant, stating that "'Two of you ain't going to be near enough...Lester and me will take on all six of you fake bastards. Full court to ten by ones. Make it. Take it'" (Alexie 102). His arrogance and self confidence is so great that Samuel challenges a group of 6 cops to a game of basketball while Lester doesn't even play well. He is seen as rambunctious and arrogant throughout the story, never giving up hope against the cops, even though he eventually ends up losing the game. The use of this story to contradict the older Samuel comes across very effectively as a result.
PaganoF
PS: Same as before, my computer keyboard is acting crazy; any double letters or crazy mixings
of letters is due to the keyboard; I apologize in advance.
While reading about Samuel I felt extremely sorry for him, as well as his family. Imagine only having one talent in life and that talent not taking you too far? Well that's how Samuel felt, unfortunately, and after high school basketball was over he had nothing to fall back on to get him through life. Therefore the whole town began to hate him, for what I believe, was an unfair reason to hate someone. Just because he stopped playing basketball and became depressed with heavy drinking they decided to shun him? They should have stuck by his side, as well as his families side, and helped them all through the rough patch in their life.
ReplyDeleteI agree witth Sarah's comment. Not standing by Samuel and is family was a terrible thing for the tribe to do. Up until this point in the story I was under the impression that the tribe was immensely close knit, the win-together/lose-together type. This short story just makes the tribe members seem a little hypocritical and nasty because they only appreciated Samuel when he was useful, but after that he was a black spot on the tribal ledger, a worthless drunk ignored by everybody.
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