Native Roots There are many stories of people who have faced challenge and hardship in their lives; however, the story “This Is What It Means to Say Phoenix, Arizona” offers a different element. The main characters, Victor and Thomas Builds-the-Fire, are Native American men who live on an Indian Reservation. While Victor and Thomas come from similar backgrounds, there are both similarities and differences between these two characters that contribute to the story.
The author, Sherman Alexie, tells this the story in a third person narration. Alexie is also a Native American who describes his own writing as “very personal and autobiographical” (Nygren, “A World of Story” 298). His personal life and experiences contribute to the authenticity of the characters represented in this story. Knowing the author shares the same culture and environment as a reader, puts the characters in a different perspective. One may question, are Victor or Thomas’s characteristics, or perhaps a little of both, a reflection of Alexie and his personality? None the less, the author having personal experience and perspective in creating these characters contributes to the story by giving it more depth and meaning.
Victor and Thomas are both round characters in the story. Some of the similarities between them are that they are from the same cultural background, both are young Native American men who grew up on the Indian Reservation and exposed to same environment. The narrator tells the reader