Throughout this small story there was a recurring sense of depression which was then overshadowed by the jokes of Thomas. If there was a hard time that Victor was going through, Thomas was always taking an optimistic viewpoint. The theme that I was able to extract from this story was that taking an optimistic viewpoint or stance when there are troubling times will help you get through them. The first display of this theme is …showed first 75 words of 611 total…

…showed last 75 words of 611 total…that was meant to teach you something: optimism is one of the only effective weapons against depression and the troubles that cause it. I think that without Thomas in this story, it would have been a lot harder for Victor to make it through in one piece. We can all learn from Thomas's example and I think that Sherman Alexie did a very good job of displaying the theme that I found throughout the story.