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The Importance Of Storytelling In The Film Smoke Signals

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To tell a story is one of the earliest cultural traditions. Stories have shaped and enhanced our lives for many years. Storytelling is an essential theme and symbol in Sherman Alexie’s story, “This is What It Means to Say Phoenix, Arizona.” Even though storytelling is a large aspect of the narrative in the short story, it is even more important and emphasized in the movie adaptation. The movie, Smoke Signals, does a more effective job using storytelling. The first time the reader meets Thomas he is telling stories to himself. “While Victor stood in line, he watched Thomas Builds-the-Fire standing near the magazine rack, talking to himself. Like he always did. Thomas was a storyteller that nobody wanted to listen to.” (Alexie) Storytelling was what Thomas was known for. It was seen as a bad trait and no one wanted to spend time with Thomas because they did not want to listen to his stories. In general, in the written version of this story the storytelling aspect was merely used as a quirk that Thomas has. It does add to the story though, because it shows why Victor does not like Thomas or why he finds him embarrassing. The fact that Thomas feels comfortable telling his stories says a lot about him. “Thomas Builds-the-Fire …show more content…

Thomas continues to have a quirky personality that makes him seem slightly crazy and silly. As the movie progressed the audience started to learn that the stories that Thomas told were mostly exaggerations if not complete lies. The movie seems to look at storytelling as a blur of truth and lies. Thomas himself says at some point in the movie that he is looking for both truth and lies. This can be a metaphor for the oral tradition that was especially used in Native American cultures. Anytime a story is retold it gets more dramatic and exciting, and then at some point it is not even the same story it started

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