Sherman Alexie’s short story “Flight Patterns” is an intriguing story about many themes, including identity, stereotypes, and the illusions of society. The story is written from an American Indian’s viewpoint and provides and interesting and different perspective on identities and relations in America after the terrorist attack on Spetember 11, 2001. The main character William, a native American man who has a wife and a daughter named Marie and Grace respectively, leaves his family for a business trip. On his way to the airport, he encounters a black taxi driver, named Fekadu, who tells him his story. He is not sure whether or not he should believe it but by the end of their trip together William realizes how much he loves and cares for his …show more content…
“Flight Patterns” is written in a first person narrative point of view, the narrator being William. This lets the reader see the story from William’s perspective, giving them a different lens to see the story and the narrators troubles through. This is an effective tool in this short story because many of the readers do not know the feeling of being racially profiled constantly. Through many examples of minor problems throughout the story, Alexie provides the reader with a basic sense of what issues racial profiling can cause. One of these recurring problems for William is constantly being mistaken for a someone of Middle Eastern descent, rather than an American Indian. This causes different problems, one of them being Muslim taxi drivers constantly asking him if he is Jewish. Another effect of this being William is constantly being pulled aside for ‘random’ pat down searches. While these issues may appear to insignificant the reader at …show more content…
He specifically uses irony to make fun of assumptions based off of appearances and racial profiling. The first example of irony comes from William, who thinks that “Seattle might be the only city in the country where white people lived comfortably on a street named after Martin Luther King, Jr” (Alexie 61). William continues later in the story to explain how he is often mistaken for someone from the Middle East due to his skin color. He continues to say that Americans should feel lucky because “I am a Native American and therefore have ten thousand more reasons to terrorize the U.S. than any of those Taliban jerk-offs” (Alexie 62). William finds it amusing that he is pulled over because he looks like a potential terrorist even though his race is completely different and had a different grudge to hold against Americans. He proceeds to tell Fekadu a story occuring shortly after the terrorist attack on September 11, 2011; he explains that he was walking down a street when a group of men yelled at him to return to his own country. Alexie effectively uses irony to further his argument that racial profiling or assumptions made based on appearances are often false, yet he does not do this in a blatant unpleasant fashion; instead, he makes it humorous and enjoyable to read while still effectively getting his point
The “First Flight” is an excellent short story that made pathos for the reader to portray in the life of an everyman who has to deal with exclusion and people’s bad choices. Gregory is an 18 year old who just wants to be sociable but everyone just shuts him out and doesn’t pay attention to him. He stops in a train station to warm up and is ridiculed on a false accusation of stealing a pilot uniform. W.D Valgardson perfectly shows both of the main themes.
In Sherman Alexie's short story, "Flight Patterns", the story's setting is in Seattle, Washington a year after the 9/11 attacks. The main character is William, is a middle class paranoid workaholic Spokane Indian. His sales job consist of him flying on planes for the majority of his life. He has a wife and daughter who loves him unbearably. The next supporting character in the short story is a taxi driver named Fekadu who is from Ethiopia. Alexie has used this short story to portray the bigger picture about how after 9/11, many people have started racially profiling and labeling others and/or themselves out of force of habit. He does this through the use of
Living in hard conditions, can make the person understand the world better. Being disabled, can create from the person a novelist. Hearing another stories, can help the person to live satisfy. Learning history, can teach the person to be unjudged. Embodiment the author to his real experience in some of his stories, consider as the most tentacles talk that can touch reader's heart. Because he lived, heard, learned, embodied, and according to all of his written, Sherman Alexie classified as the most successful writer who his words represent the reality. The story “Flight Patterns,” which was written by Sherman Alexie was representing some perspectives from his own life, like being Native American, and person with disability. The story also was about the severe problems people in this world have with profiling. It doesn’t matter if you’re White, Black, Indian, Spanish, Muslim, Jewish, rich, or even poor everyone does it. The two character I would like to focus on in this story is called William and Fekadu.
Yet, he had no desire to abandon his Indian culture. I wonder if William feels a sense of regret for the way that he thinks towards his family at the end of the story. “Flight Patterns” shows a repetitive feel for the patterns that William goes through each time he takes flight. For someone who enjoys excitement and a sense of interest, has a monotonous pattern each time he travels for business. He wanted all of it and he got it all: the good and the bad. Alexie’s story twists through numerous feelings as he explains his desires, sexism, sympathy when William feels that he is being victimized for his race, and confusion in the reader as I attempt to figure out if he is truly sincere or not. No matter how hard he tries to wear a mask to cover and conceal his thoughts and feelings, Williams’s insecurities are apparent and show throughout Alexie’s
These stories have a continued overlapping influence in American Fiction and have remained a part of the American imagination; causing Americans to not trust Native Americans and treat them as they were not human just like African Americans. In conclusion to all these articles, Mary Rowlandson and John Smith set the perception for Native Americans due to their Captivity Narratives.
Culture has the power and ability to give someone spiritual and emotional distinction which shapes one's identity. Without culture, society would be less and less diverse. Culture is what gives this earth warmth and color that expands across miles and miles. The author of “The School Days of an Indian Girl”, Zitkala Sa, incorporates the ideals of Native American culture into her writing. Similarly, Sherman Alexie sheds light onto the hardships he struggled through growing up on the Spokane Indian Reservation in his book The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven in a chapter titled “Indian Education”.
In Harrison Bergeron, the irony author Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. uses is very apparent. Irony is a literary technique in which the opposite of what is meant is said or done, usually to a humorous effect. There are three types of irony used in this story; verbal, situational and dramatic. The most humorous use of verbal irony is when the narrator says “Hazel had a perfectly normal intelligence”. This is ironic because Hazel only has a twenty second memory, which is not that
The systematic racism and discrimination in America has long lasting effects that began back when Europeans first stepped foot on American soil is still visible today but only not written into the law. This racism has lead to very specific consequences on the Native people in today’s modern world, and while the racism is maybe not as obvious it is still very present. These modern Native peoples fight against the feeling of community as a Native person, and feeling entirely alone and not a part of it. The poem “The Reservation” by Susan Cloud and “The Real Indian Leans Against” by Chrystos examine the different effects and different settings of how their cultures survived but also how so much was lost for them within their own identity.
For the past few years there has been an ongoing debate surrounding the issue of racial profiling. The act of racial profiling may rest on the assumption that African Americans and Hispanics are more likely to commit crimes than any individual of other races or ethnicities. Both David Cole in the article "The Color of Justice" and William in the article "Road Rage" take stance on this issue and argue against it in order to make humanity aware of how erroneous it is to judge people without evidence. Although Cole and William were very successful in matters of showing situations and qualitative information about racial profiling in their articles, both of them fail at some points.
The story chronicles situations that illustrate the common stereotypes about Natives. Through Jackson’s humble personality, the reader can grasp his true feelings towards White people, which is based off of the oppression of Native Americans. I need to win it back myself” (14). Jackson also mentions to the cop, “I’m on a mission here. I want to be a hero” (24).
This definition leads us to discussion on what racial profiling has been over the years and how it cannot be combined with other aspects of discrimination. Racial profiling has been solely based on, (1)The use of race, ethnicity, or national origin and not (2) the use of an individual’s behavior or information that helps apprehend somebody who has been identified as being, or having been, engaged in criminal activity. (1) provides different investigative methods( race, ethnicity or national origin) while (2) tells us about investigative methods and the goals or outcomes of these investigative methods and uses specific information on suspicious activities like individual’s behavior. Including this contrast in the definition raises two problems. Even though, because of these classifications, this article would be concentrating on combining above two opinions which contribute to profiling. And concentrate why more blacks have been stopped in driving as compared to whites or more Muslims of Middle Eastern origin were stopped at airport as compared to other people.
Hessian Abbess’s resentment is shared by many Arab and Arab-American fliers who say racial and ethnic bias is playing a bigger part in who gets pulled aside for questioning and a thorough baggage check by airport security. Complaints like Hassan Abbass's have soared since the September 11 incident prompted stricter airport security nationwide.
Staples describes his experiences in Chicago of being racially profiled, for example: people locking car doors as he walked by, people crossing to the other side of the street after seeing him, or police officers assuming him to be a threat. Then, Staples moved to Brooklyn and experienced similar responses, seen as “a fearsome entity with whom pedestrians avoid making eye contact” (136).
Adjusting to another culture is a difficult concept, especially for children in their school classrooms. In Sherman Alexie’s, “Indian Education,” he discusses the different stages of a Native Americans childhood compared to his white counterparts. He is describing the schooling of a child, Victor, in an American Indian reservation, grade by grade. He uses a few different examples of satire and irony, in which could be viewed in completely different ways, expressing different feelings to the reader. Racism and bullying are both present throughout this essay between Indians and Americans. The Indian Americans have the stereotype of being unsuccessful and always being those that are left behind. Through Alexie’s negativity and humor in his essay, it is evident that he faces many issues and is very frustrated growing up as an American Indian. Growing up, Alexie faces discrimination from white people, who he portrays as evil in every way, to show that his childhood was filled with anger, fear, and sorrow.
According to the Encarta Dictionary, Racial Profiling is the assumption of criminality among ethnic groups without probable cause. Since the September 11, 2001, Al Qaeda attack on the World Trade Center, racial profiling has been the temporary tactic used to stop terrorism. After more than ten years since implementing this practice, the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) has made little progress. Some American citizens are still skeptical of Middle Eastern and Muslim people even though TSA has caught no terrorists through racial profiling. Although racial profiling has the potential to catch terrorists, it should not be used because racial profiling can justify terrorist acts, it will not improve airport and airline security, and it is discrimination.