Twenty-one years old my middle brother began to drink constantly on a regular basis. Problems back home had influenced him in drinking, but also the people he correlated himself with back then. He took quite some time to overcome his addiction, but during his intoxicated moments he resembled that of Victor’s family. One night during my brother’s intoxication my brother had come down to our house to get away. When my brother rang the doorbell, I quickly rushed towards the door, opening it to find my brother’s eyes bloodshot red. Walking in face forwards he slowly took what felt like one hundred paces to our red couch, which already contained a few broken springs on the left cushion. Once reaching the target he plopped down like a heavy book …show more content…
Whenever Victor’s family is drinking, it appears they are trying to escape the harsh realities of their past or current issues. Ironically in escaping their issues, they caused other altercations to uprise. The impression derived from four of the stories I read, “Every little hurricane”, “Because my Father Always Said He was the Only Indian Who Saw Jimi Hendrix Play “the Star-Spangled Banner” at Woodstock”, “Somebody Kept Saying Powwow, and “Indian Education”. In each of these stories you’ll see some of Victor’s family members drinking themselves …show more content…
They sat in separate, dark places in our HUD house and wept savagely (174)”. This statement is another example of how Victor’s family is using alcohol to escape each other, but as they are doing so, they are causing more issues than they are solving them. These drinking episodes that the family has are not healthy at all. The drinking that Victor’s family does also doesn’t just have a lasting effect on them but also on Victor himself. Victor as he grows becomes more prone to drinking alcohol like his
“Alcohol addiction stunts the spiritual, emotional and mental growth of a person”~Anonymous. Sherman Alexie’s novel, The Absolutely True Diary of a Part Time Indian, is a book based off the author’s teenage life. The novel is about a poor 14 year old named Junior who faced numerous challenges in his life. Junior has experienced bullying, he was called a traitor for following his dreams, got in a huge fight with his best friend and lost three very important people in his life because of alcohol. Fortunately in the end, Junior got through the pain and lived on but he learned many lessons. One of the lessons Junior learned was that the fall into addiction, in this situation alcohol, leads to a great deal of misery for the individual and those
How does alcoholism affect families living in poverty? In A Tree Grows in Brooklyn the writer, Betty Smith, portrays the devastation drinking causes in the life of the main character Francie and her family as her father drinks himself to death. "But this acute alcoholism was a definite contributing factor; probably the main cause of death" (Smith 182). Johnny, Francie's father, was an alcoholic and was the reason for many hardships in the Nolan family lives. Johnny thought of drinking boozes as an escape from his reality. In fact, the drinking and Johnny's alcoholism was a prison to the Nolan family, caging them in poverty. In this paper I will be showing how alcoholism connects to the novel and how it affected the Nolan family. I found three major conflicts that
Throughout the story many bad decisions were being made because they couldn't handle themselves whether they were drunk or sober and it caused a lot of trouble and problems for these young men. We sometimes forget to make the right decision and sometimes is hard to make the right decision when you are hanging out with the wrong people and wrong set of minds of wanting to be "bad" or "revel" because other people are doing so.
Like many other people living on the reservation, the narrator struggles with alcohol addiction. Part of the culture surrounding the use of alcohol is to escape from problems. It is used like a crutch in times of fear. The narrator explains on page 129 that he drank heavily before visiting the hospital; “so I wouldn’t be scared of all the white walls and the sound
In “The Shining”, written by Steven King, the reader is exposed to an issue that a lot of families face in the real world that of which is alcoholism. The story’s main character, Jack Torrance, struggles from this issue due to his troubled past regarding an abusive and alcoholic father as well as his struggle of becoming the very man he loved, yet hated as a child. By exposing the reader to alcoholism, they are instantly aware of the outcomes of it and how it can affect someone. King uses this method to help enhance the story, to allow the contents of the book to become real and relatable to the reader, and most importantly, to allow the reader to actually sympathize with the main characters.
Alcohol abuse is a contributing factor for the many deaths and accidents discussed in The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian. For example, “Bobby shot and killed one of his good friends” because he had begun arguing with his friend over which of them would have the last drink of wine (Alexie 169). Bobby and his friend obviously would not have gone to such lengths in an argument if it were not for the presence of alcohol. Similarly, Arnold’s sister and her husband die when a friend accidentally sets their home on fire after a night of heavy drinking during a party. Again, this would likely not have happened had the friend, Arnold’s sister, and her husband not been influenced by alcohol. In addition, Arnold’s grandmother was hit and killed by a drunk driver while walking home. Her death was a result of alcohol abuse by a person that she did not even know, thus showing how alcohol abuse can damage people in the wider community who are not members of the abuser’s family.
“An Alcoholic Case” is the story of a nurse who is assigned with an alcoholic case. Throughout the story, she struggles to take care of her patient, but at the same time is worried about his sanity. One comes to realize the cause of the patient’s alcoholism when the narrator states, “She knew there were three medals from the war in his jewel box...” and it becomes clear why the man is suffering so much (Fitzgerald 334). He had psychological scars because of what had happened to him while serving in World War I. Similarly, “My son the murder” is a short-story about Leo, a father who becomes
Just as the characters are unable to have fulfilling relationships, they also are unable to behave properly under the influence of alcohol. As a negative effect of being a part of the Lost Generation, most characters are left with a void within themselves that they remedy with alcohol. Alcoholism affects the characters in a variety of ways, but largely, it results in the characters becoming
Another important theme shown from throughout the book is that alcohol causes more grief and death than joy. After Juniors’s grandma was hit by a drunk driver, Junior reflects on what his grandma used to say about why she didn’t drink. “‘Drinking would shut down my seeing and hearing and my feeling’, she used to say. ‘Why would I would I want to be in the world if I couldn’t touch the world with all of my senses intact?’”(Alexie 156). This moment illustrates that Junior’s grandma knew the dangers of drinking and the importance of life, so she didn’t consume alcohol; however, she was then hit by drunk driver. This tragic accident struck Junior’s family with grief. The driver was himself was having a good time while drinking, but then quickly
Throughout the book it is obvious that many characters use and/or are affected by alcohol.Some people that are evidently affected are bob,johnny and dally.Certain people
When Victor was a child his parents would drink a lot and would neglect him because they dealt with their pain by drinking. They drank because they were drinking away the problems caused by the generational trauma they and the generation before them had to endure. For example, during the New Year's party, everyone got drunk, even Victor's parents, left Victor by himself. Victor’s father and mother drank more
We knocked on the door of the off-campus apartment, as it opened we were confronted with the heavy stench of alcohol. A young girl was passed out on the living room floor, a pile of empty beer cans filled the kitchen sink, and the deafening music rattled the window panes. A group of girls managed to stumble past us. They waved goodbye to the host, who was handing drinks to me and my sister. It was not my first time drinking. In fact, everyone there was quite experienced – after all, it’s college. Half of the guests were completely drunk, and I had no problem with it. That is, until later that night when my sister locked herself in a room with a guy she had met only a week before. This prompted me to seriously consider the effects of
He starts off a surly angry young man, and ends the journey a changed, more light-hearted person. Over the years Victor had become closed off and angry because of his father leaving him with no explanation at such a young age. He was impatient with everyone and doesn’t want to spend time over the loss of his father. When he learns more from one of his father’s neighbors about how much Arnold loved him, and how much he regretted that fire, Victor slowly forgives him. Then, Victor and Thomas get in a car accident with a drunk man and Victor sees the similarities of his father and the drunken man but also with himself. He doesn’t want to run away from the issue like his father ran away from his family and his problems. He doesn’t want to lie like his father did, and not tell anyone the true cause of the fire, or like the drunken man did when he said the crash wasn’t his fault. Victor’s choice of running for miles to go get help, change his opinion of himself and other people’s. He is kinder and more comfortable in his own
Surrounded by alcoholism by his friends, family, and other relatives, Victor is susceptible to his own dreams of drowning in first rain, then alcohol as it gets more intense. For example, “And of course, Victor dreamed of vodka, whiskey, tequila, swallowing him just as easily as he swallowed them”(Alexie pg. 7). Also, when his uncles are fighting in their yard, it says that, “Victor could almost smell the sweat and the whiskey and the blood”(Alexie pg. 3). The last example in this short story comes when Victor goes to sleep in between his parents, he smells alcohol on the both of them, “His mother and father breathed deep, nearly choking on alcoholic snores”(Alexie pg. 9). These acts of alcoholism are not just for parties they throw to have
One of the many different ways alcohol has affected Victor's family is his parents drinking too much, and as a result not being there for victor when he needs them. When Victor was a younger, he was at a holiday party, and