I know we briefly talked about basketball, but I think there is more we can discuss about it as there are unanswered questions about its significance and its purpose.
It seems that basketball is a central motif that appears in many of the stories that we have read, including The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian. The most obvious story that basketball appears in is "The Only Traffic Signal on the Reservation Doesn't Flash Red Anymore" in which Victor and Adrian talk about how Indians on the reservation spend a lot of time involved with basketball. Just about everyone plays it and watches it. It seems as if it is a form of escape for them, even a form of hope. Indians look at the basketball stars as almost saviors--people who will go very far in life. However, basketball is not strong enough to ward off the alcohol and hopelessness that is plentiful on the reservation. When these basketball heroes succumb to alcohol and their basketball futures go down the tube, fellow Indians go into a state of mourning. Basketball is an integral part of Native American life, but is it just a fun pastime activity?
Do you think Alexie uses basketball as a form of entertainment? Do you think basketball has a more symbolic meaning? Or do you think it just happened to be the most popular pastime when Alexie was growing up on the reservation?
If anyone has any ideas on this I would appreciate an answer, because this has been bugging me for a long time. Thanks.
While I think that basketball can definitely be a fun pastime and probably is in many cases, I think it serves a double purpose on the reservation. In "The Only Traffic Signal on the Reservation Doesn't Flash Red Anymore", Victor says that "a reservation hero is a hero forever". He seems to be saying that the reservation basketball stars are considered heroes. The cycle of basketball stars also brings hope (to Victor at least) which interesting because he says "it's hard to be optimistic on the reservation". Basketball is also mentioned in "Jesus Christ's Half-Brother is Alive and Well on the Spokane Indian Reservation". During the narrator's attempt to stay sober, he plays basketball because "when [he] plays [he doesn't] feel like drinking". Basketball and those who play it seem to represent hope or optimism on the reservation, making it more than just a pastime. I think that it must have been more than just the popular pastime during Alexie's life on the reservation considering how he writes about it.
ReplyDeleteBasketballs are round. The earth is round. Basketball is the world to some of the indians. The basketball going through the hoop represents that even though you can dribble the ball up and down the court and have it seem like it's in perpetual motion, you let go of the ball and it goes into a hoop. Then falls down. The whole world collapses upon itself. *Fin*
ReplyDeleteI agree with Sarah. Certainly basketball must have been a popular pastime on the reservation of Alexie's youth, because Alexie is trying to paint as accurate a picture of reservation life as possible and he would obviously draw on his personal experiences to do so. However, the emphasis he puts on the sport/the way he writes about it would suggest that it has some symbolic meaning too. Personally, I think basketball represents opportunity and hopefulness. The young people on the reservation are the ones who are most heavily involved with the sport. For them, basketball is a means of escape as well as a source of happiness. However, as the young people turn into middle-aged people, their interest wanes. The same pattern is true of hopefulness on the reservation. The young people are the hopeful ones, and see life as being full of opportunity, but as they get older their optimism fades and they begin to see life as a dead end.
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