What role does forgiveness play in Smoke Signals?

Guilty feeling is one of the worse feelings in our life which could be self-destructive. Guilt crushes our sprite and makes us constantly feel so miserable until the time we lock ourselves away from the world. To overcome guilt we must be able to forgive ourselves. It is said that before we be able to forgive others, we must be able to forgive ourselves first. If we feel guilty of something, we have to be able to accept it as a mistake and we should be able to move on with our lives. Holding back in this kind of situation of guilt will only harm us and we will be compelled to stick with our bitter past.

The movie “Smoke Signals,” written by Sherman Alexie is full of situation of feeling of guiltiness and struggle to forgive ourselves and others; in fact the whole movie is based on the lesson of forgiveness. There are three major situations where the movie tries to teach the lesson of forgiveness.

Since his childhood, Victor used to dislike his parent’s drinking habit. It was due to him that his mother and father got separated and his father left the house. This feeling of guilt was eating Victor all his life till he decides to go to Phoenix and collect his father’s ashes. He always felt that it was his fault that his dad left him and his mom. Forgiveness gets too complicated when it comes to the loved ones. It is very difficult to forgive a person who used to be really close to you. Here Victor finds it too difficult to forgive his father but during the trip he learned more about his father form Suzy, he came to know how his father had to battle himself to stop drinking and also found out that he used to love him. When his first left him, Victor was very angry and when Thomas asked him, why his father left, Victor answered him my beating up. But at the end of the movie after all the realization and after forgiving his father when Thomas asked again about why his father left, Victor answered, “He didn’t mean to, Thomas.”

If we are not able to forgive ourselves and if we let our guilt to eat us, we will be self-destructive just like Arnold Joseph. After Arnold sets the fire on July 4^th celebration killing Thomas’s parents, he let himself eaten by his guilt and becomes alcoholic. He was not able to forgive himself till the end and dies in guilt. Here due to him not being able to forgive himself he ruins his life in alcohol and zeopertize his family’s life too.

Another lesson of forgiveness is shown from the relation between Thomas and Victor. Victor is good looking and spends most of his time playing basket ball where as Thomas is nerdy kind of person who always like to tell stories. Most of the people used to dislike Thomas; even Victor used to dislike him and was always rude to him. His perspective towards Thomas changed when they had to travel together to bring back Arnold’s ashes. Here, Arnold is the main connection between them. On their journey, Victor began to respect Thomas for what he is doing for him. Moreover he was surprised how Thomas could forgive Arnold even after knowing the truth that he as the one to start fire killing both his parents and how he could forgive Victor for all his rude behavior.   

The last one and the most important lesson of forgiveness is presented through the relation between Thomas and Arnold. Arnold out of guilt of killing Thomas’s parents tries to get close to him and treat him well. Thomas on the other hand is and innocent character with good heart, miss his parents and get close to Arnold. Thomas has always appreciated Arnold for saving him from the fire. He regards him as a father figure and was very fond of him. Thomas true test of forgiveness came to him when he found out that Arnold was the one who started the fire which kill his parents. He did not hesitate to forgive him. He remembers Arnold more like hero who saved him from fire rather than the one who killed his parents.