Ba Lam Nguyen Professor: Lewis English 1A DATE
Title
In “This Is What It Means To Say Phoenix, Arizona” which is written by Sherman Alexie, both Victor and Thomas are very different people due to their point of views about spiritual values; while Victor who represents the present holds a view that no use or benefit in his cultural heritage, Thomas represents the past by the way he keeps telling stories and strongly believes in the renew of such traditions; however, the two people being totally different are connected by Victor’s father, a symbol of the connection between generations. Victor has an isolated life, even with his own family and he really cares about materials; in his opinion, old values are useless and he always lets they go, whereas Thomas is more sociable, he tells story which he receives from the nature to predict the future, to achieve everything he needs. In addition, he also believes in the supernatural abilities of human and especially the rebirth of his cultural heritage. Victor’s father, who connects Victor and Thomas in the trip to Phoenix and back to Spokane, represents the bridge which connects the past and the present. In other words, he connects generations.
Throughout the story, Victor clearly represents the present now that he appears as a taker, unfriendly person and has no connection with his family; in addition, he views no use in his culture heritage which he wants to throw away. First of all, Victor is very materialistic in that he just wants to receive, but giving. At the beginning of the story, even though losing the job before, Victor still returns to his old job to ask for money to bring his father back from Phoenix. After failing to have enough the amount of money he wants, Victor takes advantages from Thomas to have the rest of the amount of money he wants. Although Victor has received some money from his father’s bank account, which he cares more than his father, he does not give back anything to Thomas. When Victor and Thomas come to the trailer where people find Victor’s father, the first thing comes to Victor’s mind is there might be something valuable in there and where his father’ money is. Moreover, Thomas saves Victor’s life in the past by rescuing him from thousands of wasps. It is unbelievable that Victor goes to his old job to ask for money for his personal problem; even after the tribal council tries to explain that they are having the difficulties in finance and the fund providing against similar situations is just used to bring trial members’ bodies, Victor still insists to have some money. Moreover, it is no doubt that Victor cares so much about the possession which his father may leave for him that he tries to find anything that he can use. In other words, it can be concluded that the purpose of his trip to go to Phoenix is to bring the valuable materials back, not his father. Finally, Victor even takes money from Thomas, who saves his life from thousands of wasps. All of these evidences illustrate that Victor is a materialistic person who just wants to take advantages from others. Besides being a taker, Victor in the story is also an unfriendly person who does not have any connection with his family. In details, Victor does not have any friends, even his family also abandons him and he does not keep in touch with anyone in his family. In the flight to Phoenix, when Thomas happily talks to a gymnast, Victor feels embarrassing about that. In a tough situation like that, Victor can not find anyone to borrow some money reveals that he is a close