Part I - Summary
In the article, “’We Are All the
Same People’? The (A)Politics of the Body in Sherman Alexie’s Flight,” the author, Kerry Boland, digs
deep into the novel and offers the idea to readers that there are huge points
to the story that may have been missed if you were to read over the story once.
For example, if a reader read it for just the story aspect of it, and not actually
dive deep into the novel as (s)he did, then there are major ideas that Boland
believes are very important, that the reader probably missed; although, Sherman
Alexie may not have intended for these ideas to be taken how Kerry Boland took
them, they can still be interpreted in the ways (s)he describes. The idea that
Kerry Boland is trying to get across is that multicultural America doesn’t
recognize the difference between “minority” groups, including American Indians,
which includes Zits. Multicultural also holds a lot of control over indigenous
people; not by law, but by influence.
Boland wants people to understand
that Flight is full of double
meanings, and not ones that are in favor of Indigenous people. For example,
Boland believes that Alexie starting off the novel by writing “Call me Zits,”
has a huge double meaning. She believes that Alexie’s intention was just to set
the mood for the novel by having the main character, Zits’, be so embarrassed
by his acne, that he literally refers to himself as Zits, and wants other to
refer to him that way as well. But, Boland believes that this can be portrayed
as more than it was meant to be. Boland states that having acne makes the face
appear red, which directly relates to a derogatory insult for Indigenous people.
Also, the message that Boland
states is the novels’ “most overt message”, or most easily observable message,
has to do with how Zits’ “flights” through time actually teach him, in the long
run, that violence does not improve a situation for anyone, regardless of their
culture or their reasoning. But, Boland argues that Flight should not be viewed strictly as a piece that shows the
violence that Indigenous people endured, because Boland believes that it did
quite the opposite. There were parts of Zits’ transformations that showed the
violence that was shown to American Indians; like Hank and Art killing a
hostage Indian boy, the American Indian boy who had his throat cut by a white
soldier, etc. But, Kerry Boland believes that this novel equalizes the amount
of violence performed on both ends, when (s)he believes that that is not the
case, so it should not be portrayed that way. I think that Boland believes that
when a story is written by an “Indian writer”, the story should be meant to
show justice to American Indians, and Flight
just doesn’t do that for him/her.
Lastly, Boland makes a point on how
the adoption of Zits by Officer Dave’s brother is an act of violence towards
Zits’ Indigenous culture, because he was adopted to a white family against his will,
thus being taken out of culture and placed into a family which will probably
never teach him about his culture. (Word Count: 530)
Part II – Analysis
To begin,
Sherman Alexie starts off Flight from
the point of view of Zits, and Alexie writes, “Call me Zits. Everybody calls me
Zits. That’s not my real name, of course. My real name isn’t important.”
(Alexie 1) When I first read through this novel, I thought of this as Zits
making light of his acne, although no one would be happy with a face full of acne,
he’s come to the conclusion that there’s nothing he can do about it. On page
21, Alexie writes, “And, yeah, I’d love to buy that stuff, but it costs fifty
bucks a jar. These days, you see a kid with bad acne, and you know he’s poor.”
Since Zits has been through 21 foster families, and has no real mom or dad, no
one has been willing to buy him anything to help fix his acne, so in his
situation, he’s decided to look it right in the face and let the world know
that he doesn’t care, even though deep down he probably does. Anyways, although
I thought that him calling himself Zits was just a small piece of his
character, Boland brings up a good point about his self-given name and his acne
having a double meaning. Boland writes, “it … tells readers that Zits’ face is
red, signaling the derogatory name for Indigenous Americans.” (Boland 71) I
think this is a good point, and I do agree that if I looked deeper into the
text the first time, and if I knew about this derogatory term of American
Indians being “red faced”, then I would definitely see this double meaning.
But, Boland writes, “Acne marks the
narrator’s Indian ancestry at the same time as the name Zits obscures his
connection to any particular history.” (Boland 71) Boland is saying that whilst
giving himself the name Zits, he is denying himself from having a name that
relates him to his Indian ancestry. While I agree that this is a good point, I
do believe that there isn’t any strong evidence to support this claim. For
example, Alexie writes that Zits’ says, “’Michael,’ I say. ‘My real name is
Michael. Please, call me Michael.’” (Alexie 181) This shows that Zits
birth-given name is a common name amongst all cultures, especially American.
So, if Zits’ given name was something Native American, then I would more so
agree with what Boland is saying, but since his name is Michael, I do believe
that Boland’s claim was a bit weak. But, I do think that this relates to
Boland’s thesis, because Zits was given the name Michael, which is in no way an
Indian name, so his mother must have been influenced by multicultural America
whilst naming her son, even though he was 50% American Indian.
Another instance that supports
Boland’s thesis is at the end of the novel when Zits gets adopted into Robert’s
home as a hopefully permanent child. Boland writes about how at the end of the
novel, Zits/Michael states that he is finally happy because he has a home, but
this shouldn’t distract us from the fact that he was once irritated from being
moved from white family to white family. This whole novel basically had to do
with the fact that Zits was trying to find his identity, but isn’t it ironic
that he winds up in a white home when he had so longed for an Indian home with
a nice Indian father? On page 8 and page 9, Alexie writes, “There’s this law
called the Indian Child Welfare Act that’s supposed to protect half-breed
orphans like me. … But I’m not an official Indian. My Indian daddy gave me his
looks, but he was never legally established as my father. Since I’m not a legal
Indian, the government can put me wherever they want.” Initially, this annoyed
Zits that he can be placed wherever the government pleases, and it annoyed him
more that they constantly made terrible choices. Boland argues that the
adoption of Zits into a white home is an act of violence against Zits’
Indigenous background, and I totally agree. For his whole life, Zits’ was
always upset about the fact that his father left him, and he was upset by the
fact that the only thing he knew about Indians was what he learned on TV, which
is essentially inaccurate. What bothers me about this ending is that, sure, he
is initially happy, but I can imagine that he probably still has a hole inside
of him that can only be filled by learning about what tribe he’s from and a
little about his own culture. When he transformed into the American Indian boy
with the slit throat, Alexie writes, “And I realize this is my father. My father. Well, okay, he’s the father
of the kid whose body I’m inside at the moment. But as long as I’m this kid, this
man is my father. And since I never knew my real Indian father, I feel like I’m
going to explode. I want to hug this guy forever and forever.” (Alexie 64) Zits
is talking about how thrilled he is to finally have an Indian father, which
makes me wonder if he’ll remain happy living with a white family. And, he was
so quick to love his new father when he was the American Indian boy, then what
is there to make me believe that he wasn’t just eager to love his new adoptive
white mother? Therefore, I do agree with Boland’s thesis in saying that
adopting Zits into a white family is an act of violence to his Indigenous
background, and I can connect his/her idea to one of my own original ideas when
in one of the first transformations, Zits became the American Indian boy that
had no voice.
Also, after he is adopted into his
new home, his new adoptive mother offers Zits some cream in order to help to
clear his skin, which overjoys Zits, which causes him to ask her to call him
Michael. I think this relates to Boland’s thesis about multicultural America
having a strong influential control on minority groups because of the fact that
he is ridding his face of the acne, which he believes he got from his father,
who is American Indian. Alexie writes, “I wonder if being Indian causes acne.
My father was an Indian. For this or that tribe. From this or that reservation.
I never knew him, but I have a photograph of his acne-blasted face. I’ve
inherited his ruined complexion and black hair and big Indian nose.” (Alexie 4)
Once his new white adoptive mother clears his face of his acne, and he is being
called Michael, he basically has no Indian culture at all.
Overall, I feel like this scholar’s
essay helped me understand Flight in
ways that I never would have initially thought about. I did struggle with this
essay a lot, but after rereading it several times, I finally understood what
Kerry Boland was saying. She has lots of great points in this essay, and I’m
very happy that I got the chance to read it. There was not a single point that
Boland brought up that I thought about during my first read-through of the
novel, so that causes me to think that his/her essay was very enriching. There
are several times, that I completely agree and can relate to Kerry Boland’s
thesis, but I also do think that there are some points she makes that could use
stronger support. (Word Count: 1227)
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