Power Of Dreams In Robert Johnson's Flight Of The Blues

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1. One day legendary blues African American man, Robert Johnson appears on the Spokane Indian Reservation who apparently sold his soul to the “The Gentleman” also known as the Devil. In flight of the Devil, Robert Johnson takes a cab and when he arrives to his destination point, Robert Johnson intentionally leaves his gifted enchanted instrument behind. The taxi cab driver who dropped off Mr. Robert Johnson was a man called Thomas-Builds-the-Fire who eventually picks up this mystical guitar that can speak. Thomas builds the first story teller misfit and starts a band called The Coyote Springs, which will take them to reservation bars to small town taverns from the cement trails of Seattle to the concrete communes of Manhattan. This is a fresh luxurious comic tale of power, tragedy and redemption among contemporary Native Americans.
2. Two themes from Reservation Blues that really glowed to the audience were definitely the influence of music and the power of dreams. An example of both of these themes in the tale is “She had felt something stretch inside her as that blue van had pulled off the Flathead Reservation all those weeks ago. She had looked back and felt a sharp pain, like tearing of tendon and ligament from bone. She had left her reservation because of that goddam guitar, that sudden fire it had lit inside her” (pg.257). The characters prosper, and fail and are always vigilant of who they are and how they got to the place they are in the story. Alexie kens that these struggles are life, and music is very vigorous and is withal another part of everyday life. Alexie mentions in this passage that it is the not so everyday music and zeal that has the potency to transmute lives, and this is precisely what his characters dream i...

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...ligion and dishonesty.
8) Metaphor: "Eagle crying... try to find some connection with Mother Earth... offer you tobacco and sweet grass... don't matter who you are, you can be Indian in your bones..." (pg295).
Simile: The cook classified them as Puerto Rican, saying this because the three "don't look anything like those Indians in the movies" (pg239).
Personification: “Victor’s guitar kept withering in his hands until it broke the straps and fell to the floor in a flurry of feedback,” (pg226).
Situational Irony: “We’re plannin’ on burnin’ me up?” the guitar asked. “Yeah,” Thomas said. He could not lie. The guitar laughed. “That’s all right,” the guitar said. “You eat your fish. I’ll just play some blues right here.” (pg168)
Symbolism: the man-who was probably, Lakota, warns Thomas when he sees him holding the guitar, stating “Music is a dangerous thing,” (pg12).

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