![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() Rather than exploring the exciting opportunities that cross-cultural exchanges can create for individuals and communities, the novel resorts to a puzzling sense of despair and settles for survival rather than imagining success for its protagonists. However, despite the hopeful beginnings of Thomas's efforts to "save his little country" (16), the novel cuts short the possibilities of this "new road" and the music is silenced. Early in the novel, its protagonist, Thomas Builds-the-Fire, says that blues music, combined with reservation stories, could offer his troubled community a "new road," a new way of seeing old problems and defeating them. Concurrently, he signals the possibility of a cross-cultural exchange between these two groups of Americans that offers hope for emotional and material improvements in their lives. With the title of his first novel, Reservation Blues, and the presence of Delta blues legend Robert Johnson on the first page, Sherman Alexie quickly and clearly acknowledges similarities between the social and economic conditions of African Americans and American Indians. ![]()
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