Reservation Blues
Eliza High
Allison Moore
Junior English
25 Sept. 2014
The Native American Experience
Life on the Spokane Indian Reservation is filled with shattered dreams and lost Indian souls drowning the sorrows of their people in alcohol. Reservation Blues, a novel by Sherman Alexie, depicts the story of an unlikely group of Indians coming together to chase their dreams with the help of a magic guitar, Big Mom, and their Indian blood as they struggle with the realities of being Indian in a white world. The protagonist Thomas is the lead singer for their band, Coyote Springs, and a reservation outsider. Victor, Junior, Chess and Checkers are the other band members, each of them as unlikely to be in a band as Thomas. Reservation Blues sheds light on the afflicted life of a modern Spokane Indian, while also bringing attention to the way whites tend treat minorities in America. Alexie uses a combination of cultural and psychological issues, in conjunction with his language in the book to convey the hardships modern Indians face. The alcoholism, loss of culture, and racism drives the Indians into the ground, as it is nearly impossible for them to truly feel as though they belong anywhere. Most of the cultural issues are coped with in the form of alcoholism on the Spokane Indian Reservation. Their ancestors were pushed onto the reservation and faced so much heartache during that time period that the entire Indian population today still mourns those losses. Thomas shows a very blunt example of how him and his people were treated when he wrote “The Indian 10 Commandments” in his diary. The most significant of the commandments are number five and number eight; “Honor your Indian father and Indian mother because I have stripped them of their land, language, and hearts, and they need your compassion, which is a commodity I do not supply . . . You shall not steal back what I have already stolen from you" (Alexie, 154-155). They've had their basic human rights stripped for
Allison Moore
Junior English
25 Sept. 2014
The Native American Experience
Life on the Spokane Indian Reservation is filled with shattered dreams and lost Indian souls drowning the sorrows of their people in alcohol. Reservation Blues, a novel by Sherman Alexie, depicts the story of an unlikely group of Indians coming together to chase their dreams with the help of a magic guitar, Big Mom, and their Indian blood as they struggle with the realities of being Indian in a white world. The protagonist Thomas is the lead singer for their band, Coyote Springs, and a reservation outsider. Victor, Junior, Chess and Checkers are the other band members, each of them as unlikely to be in a band as Thomas. Reservation Blues sheds light on the afflicted life of a modern Spokane Indian, while also bringing attention to the way whites tend treat minorities in America. Alexie uses a combination of cultural and psychological issues, in conjunction with his language in the book to convey the hardships modern Indians face. The alcoholism, loss of culture, and racism drives the Indians into the ground, as it is nearly impossible for them to truly feel as though they belong anywhere. Most of the cultural issues are coped with in the form of alcoholism on the Spokane Indian Reservation. Their ancestors were pushed onto the reservation and faced so much heartache during that time period that the entire Indian population today still mourns those losses. Thomas shows a very blunt example of how him and his people were treated when he wrote “The Indian 10 Commandments” in his diary. The most significant of the commandments are number five and number eight; “Honor your Indian father and Indian mother because I have stripped them of their land, language, and hearts, and they need your compassion, which is a commodity I do not supply . . . You shall not steal back what I have already stolen from you" (Alexie, 154-155). They've had their basic human rights stripped for