Indirect Characterization In Sherman Alexie's Flight

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Sherman Alexie uses indirect characterization and antihero literary devices in order to portray the differences between a father and a dad, and what a true dad should be, in the book “Flight”. This book is about a teenager named Zits who lost his parents at a young age and started traveling down a violent path. Then when he was about to commit a serious crime he started to time travel through different people’s bodies teaching him how to be more compassionate towards others. Alexie encourages the readers to be caring towards others and know that all life is sacred no matter who they are or what they’ve done. This is shown towards the end of the book when Zits thinks about what he has learned after his journey. One of the main themes of this …show more content…

This is used when Zits meets his new foster dad, Robert. You realize, by how Robert is described, that he is going to be a good dad for Zits and is going to make be a good influence for him as well. We also know that Robert is a firefighter which would lead us to believe he is selfless and generous, those being good qualities for a dad to have. It is good for Zits to have a dad who is so selfless and loving towards him and others. When kids see their parents being compassionate towards other people, strangers even, I believe it helps that kid to become more compassionate and caring as well as when a parent is caring and loving towards their kid they will be the same to their family. While discussing taking Zits to a baseball game Robert says, “We’re going to way up in the sky. Behind home plate. But they’re fun anyway. We’ll watch the game and eat hot dogs and drink lemonade. How does that sound?”(176). This would be something a dad would take his son to and Zits is happy he will get to go and he doesn’t say whatever to them as he did to his other foster families, to this family is