Text Exploration/"The Only Traffic Signal on the Reservation Doesn't Flash Red Anymore" by Sherman Alexie

Page 46. This happens as Victor, the narrator, begins to discuss his time playing basketball after seeing Julius go past. After this, he thinks about how he lost his edge and “feeling of immortality”.

“It’s that need to be the best¹, that feeling of immortality, that drives a ballplayer². And when it disappears, for whatever reason, that ballplayer is never the same person³, on or off the court⁴.”

1: Alexie discussing the Native American boys’ drive to win and be the best is an immediate contradiction to many stereotypes. It shows that the Native Americans weren’t just lazy and doing nothing in their poor reservations, as is a common stereotype of them. It shows that they have ambition and desire too, in the form of basketball. Adding on to this, this is an extremely relatable feeling, and it’s also very human. Especially when people are younger, wanting to win and be the best is a very common trait, so this essentially has Alexie immediately having connections created between “outsiders” to Native American communities by using a common trait between many humans in the desire to be the best, and not to mention Basketball, one of the more popular sports, especially in the United States, creating more connections. This is important because it shows Alexie isn’t trying to alienate the reader completely; indeed, he is showing a strange place for many people, but in a semi-familiar way and, perhaps more importantly, is contrasting many stereotypes.

2: Similarly to number one, a feeling of immortality isn’t altogether rare in humans. This creates further connections to the reader. This is interesting, though, for more than the connections to the reader. Having a feeling of immortality is more than just a feeling- it’s one of feeling very good about yourself. This, I think, shows Alexie trying to show that even though the reservation is an awful place, as he showed earlier in the text, the Native Americans are capable of making the best out of it, and sometimes they feel great when they’re doing things they want to do, instead of sulking around in the reservation doing nothing all the time. Especially when compared to the rest of the text, I think that this is an example of Alexie showing the different aspects of Native American life, and trying to distance his book further from stereotypes.

3: Firstly, Alexie is deliberately describing that Native Americans can have personalities that are subject to change, like any other person’s. He is saying that Native American life isn’t a monotone, always going steadily, not up or down. Indeed, it is complex and changing, just like the average human. This, again, is another time where Alexie tries to give the reader some aspects of life that are really relatable, to combine with the parts of the Native American experience that aren’t relatable. Furthermore, the narrative style of the book is interesting. Victor’s (the narrator) thoughts are being directed at the reader, as if he was talking to the reader, which means that Alexie is trying to drive home the thought into the reader by having the reader be spoken to by Victor’s thoughts. This, I think, is an emphasis of all the things that Alexie wants to see in this passage, because the reader is being directly addressed by the thoughts, making him/her pay attention more carefully, and therefore having the reader take in the information more easily.

4: To me, this, I think, was trying to avoid more stereotypes: Saying that the Native American ballplayers change “on and off the court” is explicitly showing that Native Americans aren’t defined by basketball either- they don’t exist in one form only, as many stereotypes might define them (eg. They are only basketball players, or they only sit on the reservation doing nothing, or they are only alcoholics). Alexie is showing the Native American people doing a variety of things, so that they can be seen as more human, with different interests and habits and hobbies. This creates a more relatable, and perhaps realistic, image of Native Americans in the mind of the reader; so that the reader isn’t blinded by stereotypes as they read the story.