Smoke Signals Victor Vs Thomas

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This week was a great study of the archetypical characters portrayed in the media versus their real life counterparts. In Smoke Signals we meet Victor and Thomas, living on “The Rez,” an Indian reservation near Spokane. Of the many themes explored in this movie, the most interesting to me is the differences in perspective between the two main characters, Victor and Thomas. Thomas, despite tragedy early in life, is quite the optimist. Always sporting a smile and breaking the “stoic” look an Indian is supposed to have, Thomas consistently seems to view the glass as half full. Victor on the other hand, is the opposite, still brooding with teenage angst, he goes through life angry that his father left his mother and him at a young age, still holding quite the grudge. …show more content…
Thomas tells him that he plans to spread his share of the ashes in a Spokane river, so that Victor’s dad might “rise like a salmon”. Victor replies that he intended to do the same, but viewed it as taking out the trash. It was a very simple, beautiful way to demonstrate the differences in viewpoints of these two characters. Typically, one might expect Victor to of changed his view of his father over the course of the film, but here he stays true to who he was in the beginning of the movie, viewing his father’s ashes and just another inconvenience to be taken to the side of the road. The dichotomy between these two quite literally embodies the old adage about viewing the glass as half empty (Victor) or half full
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