I remember this story from my 11th English class. The narrator changes during his 12 years of school by learning from the people he talks about. From beating up a bully in first grade, being defiant to his discriminating instructors in second and third grade, and probably his fourth grade teacher for that matter. Even though he's going against what white men typically stereotype for America Indians, they continue coming around simply because he's Indian. "Sharing dark skin doesn't necessarily make two men brothers." I liked this statement because it's true. If it's not, then does that mean that what one white man does is typical for another white man to do? I don't think that the narrator would go to the reunion at the Powwow Tavern every weekend. I think he wants to move on from reservation life. Not that he doesn't want to totally break away form tradition, an example I think of is when his hair a lot longer when he graduated from high school.
What do you think about this story?
I think that postcript about the tavern is interesting because all of the sudden, Victor is not talking to us in first person anymore. I couldn't really understand why. I almost wondered if someone else had gotten hold of his writings after his cruel, short life had already come to an end. Maybe it was this person who added the postscript, published this record of the unjustices done to VIctor, and who (unjustly) received all the money for it. Now that's a stretch, but what can I say, it's what the odd little sentence brought to mind.
ReplyDeleteI'm glad you noticed that, because I totally missed the change on the point-of-view. I put it that way simply because I like positive endings. As the story portrayed how people generally look at Native Americans, my thoughts during the reading was that he really wanted to get away from that lifestyle.
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