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#5 Explore the irony of the discussion about Thanksgiving. (Simon B)


The irony of the discussion after Thanksgiving is that Junior’s family is celebrating Thanksgiving which celebrates the pilgrims who go on to kill the Native Americans, and Junior’s family are Native Americans. Junior’s family struggles to get by in life due to their poverty, and if you think about it they’re actually spending more money than normal for the Thanksgiving dinner. Irony is when something that happens that is the opposite of what you think is going to happen and ends up being amusing because of it. Junior’s family are Native American, and in so probably are descendants of someone who was alive at the the original Thanksgiving dinner. They also probably have ancestors who were around when the pilgrims decided to turn on the Native Americans and kill almost all of them. Then now here they are years later celebrating the very people who almost wiped out their race, and possibly their ancestors. On page 101 Junior is thinking to himself, “I always think it’s funny when Indians celebrate Thanksgiving. I mean, sure, the Indians and Pilgrims were best friends during that first Thanksgiving, but a few years later, the Pilgrims were shooting Indians” (Alexie 101). Junior’s family and their ancestors suffered from white people, and the pilgrims, and yet here they are celebrating them. It doesn’t make sense nor is it fair, Junior’s family and families like them shouldn’t have to celebrate the very people who have caused them, and their ancestors so many different problems. Nobody should really be celebrating the pilgrims at all. All the pilgrims did was kill thousands of Native Americans and claim land for themselves that already belonged to others. Junior’s family and other’s like them have every right to celebrate Thanksgiving if they want to, but they shouldn’t feel any need to do so. It’s ironic that Native Americans celebrate the very people who killed their ancestors

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