101 pages • 3 hours read
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Content Warning: This section references racism, genocide, alcohol addiction, violence, incarceration, and end-stage cancer.
Victor is the protagonist of at least 11 of the collection’s 24 short stories. His name is the first one readers encounter, and his presence—whether as a child, a young adult, or somewhere in between—pervades and grounds the work as a whole.
Victor typifies Alexie’s vision of the contemporary young Indigenous man. He is sensitive, impulsive, and confrontational—a combination of traits that slate him as an antihero. His point of view illuminates many of the traumas associated with life on the reservation: poverty, violence, alcohol addiction, political oppression, cultural loss, and tribal disconnection. Although Victor internalizes these harsh realities, he seeks to find meaning in them without staying victimized by them. His internal conflict lies in Cultural Belonging and Isolation: determining the extent to which he can fashion a personal identity within his tribe. He longs to be the ideal, the warrior, and (as his name suggests) the victor, but he feels doomed to powerlessness. He bemoans not having a testing ground for his manhood, remarking, “my generation of Indian boys ain’t ever had no real war to fight” (28).
By Sherman Alexie
Flight: A Novel
Sherman Alexie
Indian Killer
Sherman Alexie
On the Amtrak from Boston to New York City
Sherman Alexie
Reservation Blues
Sherman Alexie
Reservation Love Song
Sherman Alexie
Ten Little Indians
Sherman Alexie
The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian
Sherman Alexie
The Facebook Sonnet
Sherman Alexie
The Toughest Indian in the World
Sherman Alexie
This Is What It Means to Say Phoenix, Arizona
Sherman Alexie
War Dances
Sherman Alexie
What You Pawn I Will Redeem
Sherman Alexie