Nostalgia as a Force
How does Alexie suggest through his characters that nostalgia plays a positive or negative force?
In the poem“Ode to Small-Town Sweethearts” the narrator tells of a male battling horrendous weather conditions in an attempt to make it to a small town. Upon arriving at town his friend Mark asks “Why are you out in this stuff? (Alexie)’. It is determined that all the risk and danger the driver took was for the love/lust of a girl. It gives the reader a chance to look back fondly at their own past experiences and the times when they took chances that at the time seemed to not make sense to anyone except the readers s people sometimes take chances that at the time they think is rational and later they realize it made no sense
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One day while the author and his father was in a theater watching Enter the Dragon a movie starring the martial artist Bruce Lee. He asked his father ‘Hey, Dad, is Bruce Lee the toughest guy in the world?(Alexie)’. The narrator is completely devastated by his father response “No way. There are five guys in Spokane who could probably kick Bruce Lee’s ass (Alexie)’. ‘In Invisible Dog on a Leash’ Alexie is fascinated by a Chinese man selling an invisible dog on a leash. ‘I didn’t know it was just an illusion. I didn’t know that thick and flexible wires had been threaded though the leash and harness and then shaped to look like a dog- an invisible dog(Alexie). Two years later Alexie discovers the truth ‘when at a powwow a felonious-looking white man tried to sell me an invisible dog with a broken leash. Without a taut harness the magic was gone(Alexie). The stories tells of times when the author felt a certain special or magical way about something his views or feelings toward something were shattered. How while what he thought or believed may have not necessarily been accurate or real it still broke his heart to find out the