Sherman Alexie: in-class discussion

1. Does Sherman Alexie’s “Flight Patterns” feel more contemporary to you than either Paley or Carver’s story? What parts of the story make you feel either way? Theme; language; content; plot; something else? Discuss as a group, then explain both the part(s) and those specific lines within the story that fulfill your response.


2. One of the things our class discussed on Tuesday was both the conflict and resolution of a story. Explain what tension/conflict within “Flight Patterns” drove the plot towards its conclusion. What kind of resolution is there at the end of the story? What do you infer about William’s character based on his final actions?


3.In “Flight Patterns” two men discuss how people can become trapped by other people’s ideas of who we are, especially when we are seen in terms of our race. What is the nature of this trap? Is it dangerous? Or merely inconvenient? (from the publisher’s website, Grove Atlantic)


4. Here in “Flight Patterns,” Alexie chooses to go with third person point of view. Thinking back to our first readings, where the narrator was a character, how does this affect the reader’s view of the character? What kinds of information, and possibly language, does the reader get that they may not if the story were told from William’s perspective? In what ways are the narrator and William similar?


5. After reading Alexie’s poem “Father and Farther,” you may notice that the native Indian man is a subject of both the poem and “Flight Patterns.” Discuss how Alexie tonally deals with the subject in each piece. Is there a similar resolution to any of the themes within the poem and the story? What are some statements of the native Indian man Alexie is making?