Throughout the book Flight by Sherman Alexie, the main character Zits is searching for his place and why people have mistreated him all his life. In the midst of the novel's action, Zits begins to experience character jumping, where he becomes trapped in the bodies of several characters. Each character leap Zits makes contributes to his growth into more maturity allowing him to expand his perspectives and reflect on his ideology. The characters' most significant leaps are into the bodies of the little Indian boy, Jimmy, and his father. These leaps force Zits to develop his current ideas about revenge, violence and forgiveness. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay One of the first characters Zits becomes is a young Indian boy. When he first describes his experience as a boy, he is very critical and dissatisfied with the situation. He is almost naked, hot and surrounded by many Indians speaking in a language he does not understand. While this is true, he is comforted by the fact that he has a father who loves him. At the beginning of the novel, Zits talks about his father who left him when he was born. He constantly tries to understand this betrayal in the story. Although he has a father in this section, you can identify Zits' desires to have a father in his life. It seems to be the only real way he can be happy. Zits says, “This boy loves me… I wonder if this is heaven” (65). He wants a father and having one is comparable to heaven. He says this is the first time in his life that he is happy. Before he can enjoy this bliss for too long, Zits realizes that he is at the Little Big Horn camp before the attack and becomes interested in what is happening. He witnesses much murder and brutality and is disgusted by what he sees, saying, "[he] feels sick in [his] stomach and in his brain...in [his] soul" (72). At this point he reflects on the idea of revenge and begins to try to justify it. Saying it's war and it's just self-defense. However, he is forced to think about it more deeply when the boy's father pushes him to cut the throat of a white boy to get revenge on his own. He reflects and realizes that taking revenge on people is not the optimal thing to do to replace his own loneliness or pain. At this point, Zits becomes a more sensitive and thoughtful person. After committing murder in a bank robbery, Zits is transported into the body of FBI agent Hank Storm, where he reflects on violence, death, and morality. In this body, Zits is forced to shoot a man who did not provide enough information after he is already dead. If he doesn't shoot him, he will be killed himself, so he chooses to shoot him. Once this is done, Zits begins to reflect on the murder and how cruel it is. As he does so, he develops a more sensitive idea about taking people's lives. At a later point in the novel he says, “Maybe you shouldn't kill. It doesn't matter who tells you to do it. It doesn't matter how good or bad the reason is. Perhaps you should believe that all life is sacred” (162-63). Zits begins to understand that killing is not okay, no matter how much revenge you want to take or how messed up your life is. He develops a sense of morality and questions his previous ideas about murder. The last leap the character Zits makes is into his father's body. While in this body, Zits is forced to understand why his father left him. He is able to expand his perspective and see where his father is coming from. He understands that his father has become a product of his environment and society's oppression of Indians who are always drunk. The.
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