Inherited/Generational Pain

The primary theme that "Happy Trails" explores is the experience of inherited or generational pain. This concept is a psychological phenomenon in which children or future generations inherit the trauma of those that preceded them. The notion of generational pain usually appears in work about oppressed groups of people whose trauma stems from the actions of their oppressors. In "Happy Trails," Sherman Alexie presents readers with a speaker who is well aware of the trauma he has inherited as a Coeur d'Alene-Native American. "Over the years," he says in the second paragraph, "I've lost two other uncles and three aunts, to cancer, heart disease, and car wrecks. One uncle survives, in Seattle, but I rarely see him. My father died, from diabetes, seven years ago. I've got three cousins in prison, three living in poverty on our reservation, and a beautiful and distant cousin...