One of the worst feelings in the world is the one you feel when you feel like you're trapped in the life you live. This is the feeling when the routine of your life becomes so repetitive and tiring that it feels suffocating, and the city you live in becomes a boring, inescapable prison. For many Native Americans, this feeling can be magnified tenfold, that is, living on a reservation with the same people your entire life. There is so much to do and getting off the reservation is both terrifying and difficult. The outside world may offer a variety of opportunities, but many are not equipped with the skills needed to take advantage of those opportunities, and many more may face the forms of racism entrenched in American life. It is this rational fear that, based on contemporary literature, prevents so many Native Americans from breaking the constraints of the reservation and moving on with their lives. Victor's life is the perfect example of this scenario. In the story “The Only Road Sign in the Reservation Isn't Flashing Red Anymore” by Sherman Alexie, Victor and his friend Adrian seem to be caught in a never-ending cycle. The entire story projects the feeling of entrapment that Victor experiences through various symbols such as the broken traffic light and rising basketball stars. Victor is a lost character, desperate for change; however, he is a follower and is too fearful to break the routine and face the unknown before anyone else does. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an original essayVictor doesn't know what he wants to do. In reality he knows what he wants but not how to free himself from the routine. The story begins with Adrian and Victor playing a form of Russian roulette with a BB gun. When Adrian shoots him in the mouth and the BB is fired, Victor asks him if he's dead yet. “No…not yet,” is Adrian's response before asking for a beer, having forgotten that the two have stopped drinking (44). This section of the story immediately gives the reader an eerie feeling. The “not yet” implies that death is something Alexie's characters are anticipating. The immediate request for beer afterwards is so automatic it seems routine. They are not used to change and are so lost in the same old cycle that they don't even think twice about it. What really makes this cycle so suffocating and permanent is how the story ends. A year passes and Victor goes on to say that that year has passed and that in the meantime they have done things like "eat, sleep and read the newspaper" (50). It's basically the same scene as the beginning of the story. Not only does the repetition of the scene close the loop on the routine the two seem to experience, but the senseless nothingness is also the only thing Victor hints happens in between. Clearly nothing exciting enough happened all year to give him a different outlook on anything. He's bored. He feels trapped. The broken light on the reserve can be seen as a symbol used to parallel Victor's character. The fact that it's broken is a huge indication of how Victor feels. He feels destroyed, just like the light. However, because it has been like this for so long, no one notices it anymore. And if they notice it, they don't care. The light doesn't do much because there aren't many cars. “There was only about one car passing by per hour,” (48) so how useful was the light anyway? How useful does Victor feel if he always does the same thing that everyone else on the reservation does? Nobody wants to fix the traffic lights. Nobody makes it a priority. Nobody wants to fix Victor. He doesn't want to save himself. He doesn't make it his priority. So time is running out, and a year later the light is still broken, and.