Junior seems to be one mixed up kid right now. His recent life of such decisive highs and lows has affected his emotions to the point where he does things like laugh for a long time at his sister's death (especially since it was rather gruesome). The grief-storm he has been living in has completely messed up his expectations of life. For example,on page 205, when his father arrives to pick him up, he is only thinking about the fact that his father could die any minute. At that moment, he sees his own mortality very vividly. When everything in the world around him collapses, he is like a twig in a stream. Eventually however, if he rides out this portion of his life he will take root and become like a root in that same stream, battered but immovable. I think this is Sherman Alexie's way of saying that we all have highs and lows in life, and no matter how bad the lows are, just remember that somewhere in the future is a high as high as the low was low. Furthermore, at Arnold's grandmother's funereal ceremony, Arnold realizes that laughter and tears are not so far away, and how quickly they can interchange.
Immediately after, when Arnold stops laughing, his father explains to him how his sister died, Arnold begins laughing again, and even harder this time, and then all of a sudden comes this, "Well, I laughed until about halfway home, and then I fell asleep. Snap, just like that. Things had gotten so intense. so painful, that my body had just checked out for a few repairs (206)." Sherman Alexie is using this as a transition to an in-and-out of consciousness scene, but more importantly to say that after a certain amount of time, that twig in the stream snaps. It is hard to empathize with what Arnold is going through because many of us have not experienced this type of family catastrophe. This is Alexie giving the reader something to empathize with a little more, and that is losing consciousness. Finally, on page 211, Arnold describes something he's never experienced before, which is Rowdy missing a punch. This is because he is crying at Arnold's sister's funereal, but refuses to admit it. And after all this, Arnold laughs like a mad man.
Do you think Arnold's life will settle down a little more in the oncoming weeks/months? Or do you think he will just roll on in this state until his emotions are mixed into unrecognizable blends?
One of the reasons that Arnold is so crazy with his emotions is that they have not yet caught up with him. It said on page 201 that his grief did not hit him right away. While Arnold was laughing his grief had still not caught up with him and he had not had time to process what had really happened. He beings to really realize what is happening on page 206 when he wakes up from his dream and asks his dad if his sister is dead. When he says yes Arnold realizes how real this whole thing is and how he has not dreamed up all of these crazy emotions.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Kec14. Arnold had just lost his sibling, so when he sees his dad is alive he blocks out the sister and laughs joyously. The smallest thing matters the most to him. Then in order to not "crawl into a hole and die" he has to laugh at the oddest things, even Rowdy crying and missing a punch. Once the truth hits him, and he actually sees his sis is dead then he will take it like he took the others. He sees there is no use in mourning at first so he celebrates.
ReplyDeleteI think that if he does keep having this lifestyle of UPS AND DOWNS every couple seconds, he WILL eventually start to go insane... well, more insane. Eventually his crazy life will cause him to laugh at probably anything, because it won't know what to expect, so it will just laugh off even things when laughing would be insulting. With all these deaths in the family, he has already started to go insane, and has succumb to the pressure of all the other Indians, and he himself has began to think that he caused all these deaths because he left the reservation!
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