The 2007 American literary novel Flight is the story of a hopeless foster child, but the unique approach of Sherman Alexie (Spokane/Coeur d'Alene ) makes it anything but ordinary. bildungsroman. Unlike a conventional coming-of-age novel where readers watch the protagonist grow up with difficulty, time travel forces readers to question their own biases and fundamentals to realize what is important. The first-person protagonist narrator, Zits, was born as a mixed-race Native American, but believes he has no race, home, or family, which he considers the main components of someone's identity . Zits is sent to travel back in time to discover Indian settlements in contemporary America, historically reliable through Alexie's understanding of reservation life due to his childhood on a reservation (Spokane/Coeur d'Alene). Zits doesn't realize at the time that his travel education will make him a new person, or in fact, the person he was all along. Zits not only transforms outwardly by getting rid of his name-giving acne, but he also emerges from time travel regardless of who he was on the first page. His time travels bring Zits into contact with the violence of people of many skin colors, in how such anger stems from misconceptions about people, and further in how Zits misidentified people around him, as well as himself. The ability to see conflict from both sides – American and Indian – opens the door to the idea that no one is defined by their cultural identity, but more importantly by their actions and behavior over the course of their lives. This shows that there is not that big of a difference between Indians and Americans, which is crucial for Zits to determine what type of life he is going to live. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get the original essay Flight is a narrative with a community of different voices, each of which embodies a different representation of the past about which Zits initially lacks precise knowledge. . The first authentic account takes place in the mid-1970s, where Zits finds himself in the white body of an FBI agent on the Red River Indian Reservation. Since Alexie selectively chose historical events that would seem familiar to the reader, it would not be unusual for him to tie the first encounter to the infamous battle between IRON, the Indigenous Rights Now! Movement, and HAMMER, the traitorous tribal government officials who later teamed up with the FBI. In this section, Zits plays the role of Hank Storm and witnesses his fellow agent's racist attitude toward the Indians: "I wish Custer would kill a few more of those damn tepee crawlers" (43). Zits is confused to see that his partners are friends with Elk and Horse, two Indians who are supposed to be part of IRON. These two pull an Indian named Junior out of the trunk of their car and long story short, Hank's partner Storm shoots Junior without blinking an eye when the captive refuses to talk. What is significant in this scene is that Zits does not witness Junior's death without taking a hit himself. The white man wants to let the corpse rot, while Elk advocates the morally right action he was taught: "He's a traditionalist... his soul won't go to heaven if we don't bury him in the Indian way” (52). Basically, Elk and Horse torture and kill Junior, then moments later give him a fair burial. Zits discovers how intertwined violence and compassion are, but isdisconcerted. It is normal for the narrator to feel nauseated while watching someone die, but it is a sign of maturation in his journey that he emphasizes how violence is unnecessary even if it is still practiced by many. It's interesting to see the Native and white sides shine through Zits in this scene, as he observes Native burial culture while feeling a white man's guilt after killing an Indian. The buttons are the role of good and evil - of compassion and violence - achieving the guilt necessary to understand where the racial inconsistencies come from and close the gap of the us versus them scenario that has prevented him from identifying. Zits learns of the violence that everyone is capable of, but time travel delves deeper into this concept by suggesting that misconceptions are often the cause. To say that Zits is an average teenager would be unfair, given his divided struggle between native ethnology and the unsympathetic white world. His Irish mother died when he was young, his Indian father left his son before they met, and as Zits became more aware of the atmosphere he lived in, he began to actively resent the white people who constantly stereotyped him . He was being stereotyped of an Indian race that he did not even believe was his, as he associated abandoning his father with abandoning Indian identity. Given his frustration resulting from mislabeling, Zits' anger comes from contemporary America's misconceptions about Native Americans technically like him, which are prevalent throughout history. As an illustration, one of his bodily migrations involves a thirteen-year-old Indian boy, presumed to be in the midst of Custer's last stand at the Battle of the Little Bighorn in 1876. At the end of the battle, the father of the Indian boy corners a young white soldier and insists that Zits wants revenge on him and must give the white soldier what he deserves; what he deserves for the brutal actions of a totally different white man on the Indian boy. Generalization comes into play here since the Indian boy's father associates all white people with enemies. The innocent young soldier has done nothing directly towards the Indian boy, but the sight of his white face sparks a desire for revenge in the father, leading Zits to wonder, "Is revenge a circle within a circle within a circle? (77) Father's pressure "to be a warrior" forces Zits to confront his own feelings of vengeance (78). After the distress that whites historically caused the Indians, such as the theft of perfect land and the bizarre brutality they suffered, Zits could practically have used this opportunity to fight back. But no. He hesitates and the scene ends with him at a crossroads about what to do, where he finally closes his eyes and is transported. Alexie suggests that Zits not kill this soldier for the sake of the guilt he would have. Given his lifelong hatred of white people and his destructive intentions at the beginning of the novel at the bank, readers would have initially predicted that Zits would have no regrets about killing this guy. However, the guilt that Zits endures simply by thinking about the murder motivates him to appreciate the value of revenge when resolving difficult situations. At the end of the novel, Alexie reevaluates the extent to which the costs of revenge outweigh its benefits and, now inclined to this analysis, Zits wants to live a life unmotivated by the resentments of the people before and around him - a life renouncing violence . The last person, Zits plays his father, at the same time as the beginning of the novel, and it is here that time travel proves to Zits that everyone has their own inner conflicts - not everyone is so, 2007.