“Quitting is contagious” (138, Alexie). Junior said, talking to himself. Junior and his
teammates were having fun playing basketball until coach huddled everyone in, and tryouts
began. The first exercise was to run a hundred laps around the gym but one teammate only
managed to do fifty. Then, three more of the athletes walked of the court all giving up on
only the warm up. Quitting is contagious because if one person thinks they can’t make it, a
handful more will think that if the first one quit, they have the right to do so too. The
significance of this quote, is that the whole book is teaching people that quitting is a bad
option. If one quits, they are ultimately losing a chance they could have seized upon to
grow positively. Similarly to the Arnold’s teammates giving up, the Spokane Reservation
quit and gave up too. “ All these kids have given up. All your friends. All the bullies. And
their mothers and fathers have given up, too.” (42, Alexie). This quote is a more extreme
case of quitting because a whole entire community has quit and they can’t get out of the rut
they put themselves in. It takes time to recover from quitting and to escape the cycle of
quitting but if one stays strong like Arnold, one will not give up. Instead one will keep trying
like Junior did when he faced Roger one-on-one in basketball and many other times where
he did not quit.
I agree with this analysis. I believe that if one person quits, it spreads negative energy to the people around him/her. A quote that opposes this thought is "White people have the most hope." (Alexie, 45). This quote says that white people have more hope than Indians, and when "quitting is contagious" (Alexie, 138) is said, Junior realizes that he has more hope than many white students. Junior kept getting back up, and wouldn't give up while playing the game. I think that despite race, you can lose hope if you are surrounded by people who have already given up.
ReplyDeleteI also agree but feel like it is more that not quitting has it's rewards. If you don't quit even against bad odds you can succeed but you never win when you quit. For example Junior understands that when he thinks "Ninety percent of me wanted to take the break. But I knew if I took that break I would never make the team."(Alexie, 140). He realizes that he is not a "quitter" and that he wants to make the team and that quitting won't win him a spot on a team. He realizes that failing is better that quitting. I think that although winning isn't everything quitting isn't winning and trying is.
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