“Because My Father Always Said He Was the Only Indian Who Saw Jimi Hendrix Play the ‘Star-Spangled Banner’ at Woodstock”:
Individual Warfare
As Greek philosopher Plato once said, “Only the dead have seen the end of the war.” In Sherman Alexie’s “Because My Father Always Said He Was the Only Indian Who Saw Jimi Hendrix Play the ‘Star- Spangled Banner’ at Woodstock,” Victor’s father can align directly with this belief. He consistently struggles with his own unique wars as well as the struggles that came along with the Vietnam War period, even decades after its end, in which all were either supporters or protestors of the War. A citizen would consistently fear of being drafted and sent somewhere they were unfamiliar with and not welcome, which
…show more content…
Throughout the short story “Because My Father…,” Sherman Alexie utilizes the …show more content…
He uses alcohol to save himself from his prior wars; such as the racism he encounters in and out of prison, and even his unforgiving latch to his past. It allows him to travel back in time to where he was happier, to where he was with Jimi Hendrix. Victor describes the connection that Victor’s father felt he had with Hendrix as a relationship in which, “He'd sit by the stereo with a cooler of beer beside him and cry, laugh, call me over and hold me tight in his arms, his bad breath and body odor covering me like a blanket” (Alexie 26). Victor’s father’s battle with alcoholism affects not only his life, but his son’s as well. By portraying him as an alcoholic, Alexie is able to show not only the battle that Victor’s father has with his addiction, but also how those around him have to battle it as well. Later in the story, when Victor is discussing his father’s reliance on his “glory days”, so to speak, Victor reveals, “Jimi Hendrix and my father became drinking buddies. Jimi Hendrix waited for my father to come home after a long night of drinking” (Alexie 26). Victor’s father’s alliance and imagined connection with a figure such as Jimi Hendrix encourages his alcoholism, as he views drinking as a way to return to the past, to Woodstock. This belief causes his addiction to become deeper set, and more difficult to battle. His war to return to a time in his life when he felt
The war in Vietnam to do this day has gone down as one of the influential and controversial wars in United States history. The war lasted from 1955 to 1975.The nation as a whole began to uproar over the war and the major consequences of the war. There were many reasons why so many Americans were against the war. Public opinion steadily turned against the war following 1967 and by 1970 only a third of Americans believed that the U.S. had not made a mistake by sending troops to fight in Vietnam (Wikipedia). Not to mention, many young people protested because they were the ones being drafted while others were against the war because the anti-war movement grew increasingly popular among the counterculture and drug culture in American society and
The attachments were so strong that Victor refers to Jimi Hendrix and his father as “drinking buddies. " His father became wistful and dependent on alcohol after him and Victor’s mother’s marriage started to take a turn for the worse. Victor once stated, “When an Indian marriage starts to fall apart, it’s even more destructive and painful than usual” (52). The failure of his father’s marriage really took a toll on him and didn’t help with the things he had already been through, which resulted in more drinking. Victor once compared his father’s drinking problem to a traditional ceremony and that suggests the importance of drinking in Victor’s dad’s life, especially as a Native American.
The novel The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-time Indian is not simply written. The author Sherman Alexie, uses several words like articulate, hormonal, and decrepit which displays that the novel could be read by people of all ages. This novel is wonderfully written so that people of every socioeconomic status can relate to real-world problems like poverty, racism, death and substance abuse. Alexie uses simple language to convey the thoughts that are actually inside people’s minds. For instance, in the first chapter of the book, the author introduces Arnold to the world (Alexie, 2007).
Victor has had supportive people around him since birth; however now that he is at the university he has nobody to help keep him level headed. "Every night I was oppressed by a slow fever, and I became nervous to a most painful degree; the fall of a leaf startled me, and I shunned my fellow creatures as if I had been guilty of a crime" (35). The isolation being portrayed by Victor is now shifting from not only
In 2013 when Viet Thanh Nguyen began to write The Sympathizer, it had been 40 years since the Vietnam War. It had been 40 years since French and American military involvement ravaged a once beautiful countryside and littered lush forests with napalm. It had been 40 years since 2 million people were displaced from their country and left to die in the Pacific Ocean. In those 40 years, many works were published about the Vietnam War. These stories came from many, contrasting, perspectives.
Once European men stepped foot onto what is now known as North America, the lives of the Native Americans were forever changed. The Indians suffered centuries of torment and ridicule from the settlers in America. Despite the reservations made for the Natives, there are still cultural issues occurring within America. In Sherman Alexie’s, The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven, the tragic lives of Native Americans in modern society are depicted in a collection of short stories taking place in the Spokane Reservation in Washington state. Throughout the collection, a prominent and reoccurring melancholic theme of racism against Native Americans and their struggle to cope with such behavior from their counterpart in this modern day and age is shown.
Further, this loss of family and friends causes Victor to lose his attachment to the world. Secrecy ultimately brings about his inability to save himself. In this paragraph I will show
One night, Victor had drunk too much from an Indian party that he had went to and so when he came back home and tried to sleep he couldn’t. In the book, it said, “It was late early in the morning. He kept his eyes open until they grew accustomed to the dark, until he could see vague images of the bedroom... Fifteen minutes had passed and it ways closer to sunrise and he still hadn’t slept at all” (Alexie 85). This reminded me of the times in which I would have all nighters from playing video games.
After the terrible incident of residential schools, the neverending history of suffering can cause a child to reciprocate their feelings by abusing substances. In Tracey Lindberg’s, Birdie, it’s stated briefly of the ways in which Bernice relies on alcohol on many lonely nights. “She knows that she shouldn’t have gone to the motel with him. There are a lot of shouldn’t haves. Drunk gin.
Throughout the book the death of Victor's family has taken a toll on his mental state and he starts showing signs of mental illness. Much like Mary Shelley had mental illness because of the horrors that happened in her life. The illnesses that Victor starts showing signs of depression, paranoid schizophrenia, and anxiety. Depression is something that
Contemplating suicide, Victor realizes that his life has become empty. The void that only family and love could have filled is widened even more. His chances for happiness are dead; everything he has ever loved is vanished. The guilt Victor feels is uncomparable; the creature he made became a cold blooded killer. In a sense, one can argue that Victor is responsible and maybe, if he hadn't made the creature in his lab that gloomy day, he could have been happy.
Victor grew up to become a very loving, affectionate and humane individual, due to the love and
On April 4, 1967 Doctor Martin Luther King Jr gave the speech, “Beyond Vietnam-A time to Break Silence.” In this powerful speech Dr. King addresses his followers, and explains why the same people who are advocating for civil rights, should also protest the war in Vietnam. Dr. King’s main appeal is towards pathos because he is explaining his reasons, most of which are moral in some way. Dr. King develops the central claim of the speech by explaining how the war is taking away resources from the poor, how the soldiers are disproportionately poor people, and lastly how the war is completely against his morals. His central claim of the speech revolves around war being an enemy of the poor.
Victor damages his mindset by allowing himself to go mentally insane. Because the sight of medical tools tortures Victor’s mind, he becomes psychotic and depressed. Secondly, this character devastates himself when he views his monster alive for the first time. Victor becomes ill for several months and eventually recovers; however, this ailment disturbs him for the rest of his life.
The death of his mother leads Victor into denial. As a result of his mother 's death, Victor’s emotions falsely lead him to believe that he could have some control over the fate of peoples lives. Thus, Victor’s beliefs soon equated to a set of rules that he himself must follow. Consequently,