Victor Copes With No Motivation For Life
The novel, The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven, by Sherman Alexie, explores the life of a young Native American man. This book of short stories depicts the negative aspects and issues in life he faces. Victor, the protagonist, is a young Native American man faced with growing up on a Native American reservation. Although not experiencing growing up in the healthiest of environments, Victor finds ways to cope with life. Consequently, his means of dealing with life are also not the healthiest. Victor is shown to drink alcohol which takes him into a world of his own. Victor's experiences in growing up in a community, where there is no motivation to succeed, lead to his use of alcohol to cope with the negative aspects of the reservation.Victor's family life is where many of his troubles begin. The story, " Every Little Hurricane," shows the irresponsible parental actions of Victor's parents: "...Victor was nine years old. He was sleeping in his bedroom in the basement of the HUD house... His mother and father were upstairs, hosting the largest New Year's Eve party in tribal history..." (1). Parents should not leave a young child unattended or on his own, especially on a special occasion such as New Year's Eve. He
This placed a tremendous amount of emotional sadness within their hearts. I wake up the next morning in a field watching a cow watch me" (117). Victor was kept aware that there is not much to do about the situation. I wake up on the bottom of that mass grave with bones of generation of slaughter and I crawl and dig my way up through layers. Victor enjoys his sobriety: "Been sober so long it's like a dream but I feel better somehow and Auntie was so proud of me. Again, this shows the selfish acts of his parents and that they have no concern for the well being of their child, thus adding to the factor of his diminishing self esteem. They just hope it's good beer" (49). Like his parent's, Victor does not show any concern for the child: " One night I get so drunk I leave him at somebody's house and forget all about him and can you blame me?. They'd been expecting me back since the day I left for Seattle. Victor's parents wait and wait, but they do not take the initiative to move forward since society does not offer any support to do so. As a kid, Victor is shown to have been influenced and impacted with hardships that he needs to cope with. There is no optimism in life, nor any worth for what there may be to come and what good one can make out of situations. I ask the tribal cop how long I've been drunk and he tells me for most of a year and I don't remember any of it" (123).
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Acceptance Essays
