Flight By Sherman Alexie Essay

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Everyone wants to fly away from their problems. This quality is especially true in the main character of the novel Flight. Three critical approaches that can be seen in the book Flight by Sherman Alexie are gender, moral, and symbolic criticisms. The main character in this book, Zits, goes through many difficulties in life. He struggles with finding who he is, and is incredibly weighed down by his problems. He eventually learns how freeing forgiveness can be, and finds his true self. Before he can do that, though, he goes through many different characters that defy gender normalities, teach him moral-building lessons, and symbolise more than even he can comprehend. The first criticism, which there is an abundance of in this novel, is the gender feminism approach. “She cuts off his penis and stuffs it into his mouth” (Alexie 73). The typical woman archetype is to be kind and caring of others. These Indian women completely defy this stereotype by committing this grotesque act. Gender stereotypes are challenged again within the quote: “Art’s eyes fill with tears” (Alexie 56). This tough FBI agent starts crying at the thought of losing his best friend. This display of…show more content…
One of the first examples that the moral approach may be applied to is on page 53, “Maybe you can’t kill somebody twice for real, but it sure hurts your heart just the same” (Alexie) Zits is really starting to realize the impact of killing, and how awful death is. He is starting to comprehend how death is not only painful for the one being killed, but also for the one killing. Another example is found in chapter seven, “This is my punishment. Yes, this is God’s final punishment for me” (Alexie 93). After being in only a few characters, he realizes how he deserves to be punished for the original crime he committed. He has learned what guilt feels like, he has learned that he deserves to be
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