The Impacts of the Taxi Drivers Story in Sherman Alexie’s Flight Patterns

Three people from three different backgrounds all with their own unique stories. It is amazing how diverse the world can be. Despite being so different these three people are all vastly similar in the methods they use to sway an audience. Daniel, the writer of The Necessity believes that parades are essential. This very simple display of culture allows normal everyday people the chance to escape from their deeply depressing lives and show a bit of pride. Fong, the writer of Rice for Thanksgiving has a particularly interesting reflection on his family history. Despite the troubles they went through due to discrimination he still believes in the melting pot that is America. Chelsey the writer of Taking the Bus talks about how her experiences with new and strange people on the bus have changed her outlook on life. The interactions with these people give her some perspective on how her life fits in in the grand scheme of things. All of these stories are different yet they all do one very similar thing. They use the human capacity for sympathy as a means of swaying the reader.

A man is insensible to appreciate prosperity until he has tasted adversity. Adverse situations shape an individual’s identity and play a significant role in one’s life by shaping personal values, determining one’s own potential and self worth. Khaled Hosseini conveys how hardships shape individuals identities through the characters of Amir, Baba, Hassan and Ali in his novel The Kite Runner. Like every individual they go through a series of incidents and hardships that shape who they become and how well they deal with struggles in

Flight is a novel by Sherman Alexie that tell the story of a distressed Native American teenage boy, who has sadly stretched his breaking point after years of ill-treatment at the hands of adults, named Michael but prefers to be called Zits, “Call me Zits. Everybody calls me Zits. That is not my real name, of course. My real name is not important.” (Zits, p.1). Zits was left to his own devices at the age of six when his mother died of breast cancer and his father did not stick around much after he was born and left him. “I get into arguments and fistfights with everybody. I get so angry that I go blind and deaf and mute” (Zits, p.8)Zits is a violent person and takes out his anger on anyone because he has been in and out of the foster care system, none of which felt like family, with foster parents who only cared about the government cheque. He feels left out from the rest of the society mostly because of his half-Indian heritage and his abuse. Because of this, he is easily persuaded into committing crimes.

Sherman Alexie’s “Flight” is a book about a time traveling orphan named Zits, guilty about shooting a busy bank. His whole life was built on wanting to escape his foster homes and witnessing acts of violence done to others and himself. He confesses that the only person that ever truly loved him died when he was 7. His alcoholic father chose drinks rather than his own family. Because of the evil in his life, he becomes that evil himself. He becomes somebody easy for himself to hate and thinks any ounce of compassion towards him is fake. His form of revenge on the universe is shooting mass amounts of people. Not even a few minutes into his shooting spree, he is shot and gone before he hits the ground. He then experiences the lives of an FBI agent, a young Indian, an old French soldier, a pilot that trained a terrorist, and his own cowardly father. Sherman Alexie’s telling of Zits emotional experiences makes you weep and you are forced to learn along with Zits. Through his time traveling journey and experiences through others’ lives, he learns lessons about life and the importance of finding the good rather than the bad.

“Flight Patterns” by Sherman Alexie is a story about a man and his ride to the airport. The man is named William and he takes a taxi to the airport. His taxi driver starts making conversation and by the end of the story William has a lot to think about. “Flight Patterns” focuses heavily upon race and identity with the two main characters being people of color. Throughout the short story William and Fekadu reflect on societies preconceptions based on the skin color. Fekadu and William often found themselves trapped by other people’s ideas.

Travellers in order to arrive at their desired destination may encounter hardships as a result of trying to proceed forwards or overcoming obstacles. Journeys challenge travellers with obstacles and without being able to overcome them, may result in life changing consequences preventing the traveller from reaching their destination. The poems by Peter Skrzynecki and Missing Her are two texts in which an exploration of how failure to overcome obstacles within journeys may have resulted in different destinations for the traveller.

"Flight Patterns" brings together two Americans of different ethnic backgrounds but dark sides, One a Native American businessman who is afraid of flying and the other a short, thin black man from Ethiopia who is a cab driver. They realize they find a bond that brings them together like never before.

As the cab ride progressed they started talking about 9/11 and how it impacted everyone. William explained that after 9/11 even he was searching for the “little brown men” and hoping that when on the plane there would be a lot of gun wielding psychopaths. Fekadu explained his life as an Ethiopian. He went into detail about how he studied physics at Oxford but in Ethiopia he was a jet-fighter pilot that dropped bombs on his people for his Emperor Haile Selassie until one morning when he decided to leave his own family and

Cab Calloway was born in Rochester, New York, on Christmas Day in 1907. The family relocated to Baltimore, Maryland. His mother, Martha Eulalia Reed, was a Morgan State College graduate, teacher and church organist. His father, Cabell Calloway, Jr., was a graduate of Lincoln University of Pennsylvania in 1898 and worked as a lawyer and in real estate

Sherman Alexie is very well known for his takes on Native Americans in modern American society. His books and stories most often are inside thoughts of situations that are occurring or have already occurred. Two of his shorter stories highlight two very different situations but in a sense connect with another. “Flight Plan” and “Breaking and Entering,” although confronting Native American characters, reveal to the reader the important information about American life in general. “Flight Plan” is a story that involves an encounter between a Native American business man and an Ethiopian taxi driver. This story takes place in a taxi cab, revealing

Angrosino (1994) provides a narrative of the life of Vonnie Lee, whose story is described as a “personalized ethnography” using an “anecdotal style of narrative” (p.17). Vonnie describes himself as “poor white trash”, the son of an alcoholic, who had been sexually abused during his youth, and who had been in and out of psychiatric wards for observation. Angrosino (1994) observes that Vonnie was able to tell rich stories regarding his trips on the bus, but that these stories rarely included detail of others, but were filled with details of bus stops, street scenes, and observations from the route itself. The author explained that Vonnie, “truly believed that the point of the story was the bus ride, not the destination” (p.18).

The novel “Flight” was a very interesting story about a young boy who seems to be lost in life and has an identity crisis which leads him down the wrong path and makes the poor decision to shoot up a bank. To have the boy come to the conclusion what he was doing was wrong Sherman Alexie sends him to different places and times to show teach him something more, almost like the Scrooge and the many ghosts he encounters in “A Christmas Carol”. I will discuss a few of his “flights” analyzing each flight and his journey from Zits to Michael through emotional encounters and tough lessons.

Laura Kasischke’s short story is “If a Stranger Approaches You about Carrying a Foreign Object onto the Plane” is a relatively light and easy read about a women names Kathy Bliss, who is leaving on a flight for work and is approached by a man who needs a favour. However, the story is riddled with more serious themes of approaching the unknown, as Bliss has to contemplate what could happen if she does take this object on the plane, and dealing with illness and the hospital, as her daughter turns out to be very sick and needs hospitilization. It also touches on life changing event in both a negative and motive way. The stranger is experiencing the life changing event of becoming a father, this is a stressful but ultimately positive thing in his

Jonathan’s pursuit of the perfect flight took everything from him. He lost his health, his family, his friends, and even his home. Although he struggled at times

My journey the day I left my home country in search of a better life was not as pleasurable or exciting as I expected. Although it was not a long flight, the accumulation of unexpected vicissitudes during the trip made my dream of traveling an absolute nightmare. Not only my sadness to be leaving my family behind, the uncertainty to fly alone and for the first time, or my inexperience with the procedures at the airport contributed to this calamity, but even my neighbor on the plane added his bit of sand in the affair. All this situation was such traumatic to me that I even considered never daring to fly again.