Arezou Esmaeeli

Bryan Dunn

English 2, 6th Hour

8 February 2016

Symbolism in Sherman Alexie’s

The Only Traffic Signal on the Reservation Doesn’t Flash Red Anymore

 

        Stories have always been a part of our lives. We read them for entertainment, for knowledge. Sometimes though, we fail to notice interesting symbolism in the story. The Only Traffic Signal on the Reservation Doesn’t Flash Red Anymore by Sherman Alexie includes a lot of symbolism that one may fail to notice. The story takes place in an Indian Reservation. It starts off with two guys hanging out, shooting a BB gun bullet into their throats. The main focus of the story happens to be skilled basketball players, who show potential to being very successful. The protagonist, Victor, happened to be a basketball player himself, but he stopped playing after he lost the “edge.” It happened when the coach took too long to show up, so they looked at first aid manuals full of photographs of injuries and open wounds. After that, he didn’t score a single basket. Now, he just sits on his porch while drinking a Pepsi with his friend Adrian.

          The people of the reservation look at these great basketball players at the reservation as some sort of heroes. Their hero during most of the story was Julius Windmaker. However, he started drinking, and wasn’t doing great during his games. “He still looked good in his uniform, although he was a little puffy around the edges. But he wasn’t the ballplayer we all remembered or expected” (5). The community at the game lost their hope for Julius to make it big. Victor mentions how after the game, when the crowd was filing out, they talked about who could be a possible replacement for Julius. “We talked about some kid named Lucy in the third grade who already had a nice move or two” (5).

           An important piece of symbolism from the story includes the traffic signal. When Adrian and Victor are sitting on the front porch in the beginning of the story, Adrian points out the traffic signal that has stopped working. Throughout the story, the traffic signal isn’t mentioned until another year later when Adrian and Victor are drinking Pepsis on the porch. This time Victor says, “That damn traffic signal is still broken. Look” (6). The word still implies that no one has attempted to fix it throughout the whole year. Much like the problem with potentially successful basketball players that give up everything to become alcoholics. In the story, anyone who has had the chance to make it big, hasn’t due to alcohol. No one in the reserve wants make a change to the pattern. That’s why, the reserve remains a broken place full of broken people.

          Another important example of symbolism is at the very end of the story where Adrian threw his cup across the yard. Adrian and Victor both watched the cup revolve until it finally smashed the ground. The cup symbolises the rising basketball players of the reserve. They become better and better until they finally crash one day, much like the cup. Adrian and Victor simply watch the cup crash, doing nothing to help it from falling down.