A rite-of-passage story pattern is when the protagonist of a story or novel goes on a physical and emotional journey to learn a life-changing lesson or skill. A typical rite-of-passage story has 3 main stages: Separation, Initiation, and Return. Ben Mikaelsen and Sherman Alexie shows examples of rites of passage in their stories “Touching Spirit Bear” and “This is What it Means to Say Phoenix, Arizona.” In the first of three stages, the main character of the story starts their journeys and separates from the society and community; this is the stage of separation. Ben Mikaelsen, the author of Touching Spirit Bear, shows evidence of the main character, Cole, going through this stage when he is sent to the island after Cole’s choice to participate…show more content… In this stage, the main character undergoes trials and tribulations to reach their lowest low at the marginal status, where the character meets with the main conflict that will be resolved as the story progresses. Evidence from Touching Spirit Bear can show this stage is where Cole is in the fight with the Spirit Bear, a piece of dialogue that also shows one of the trials of initiation is in the line, “The mauling didn’t make sense. In the past, everything had always been afraid of him. Why wasn’t the bear scared?” (Mikaelsen, 81). In this line, it shows that Cole is in his second trial of initiation, fighting the spirit bear. Cole learns that the Spirit Bear is a powerful being and that Cole made the mistake of trying to kill it. Garvey says near the beginning of the book, “Whatever you do to the animals, you do to yourself,” (Mikaelsen, 19). It shows that whatever Cole does to the Spirit Bear, the bear does to Cole. The Spirit Bear did nothing to harm Cole when they first meet, but Cole tries to kill it, so the Spirit Bear is threatened and it attacks. Evidence of initiation from This is What it Means to Say Phoenix, Arizona is shown with the line, “Oh, man, I don’t know if I can do this” (Alexie, 26). This line shows that Victor is in the stage of initiation because he [Victor] is afraid of going in the trailer and seeing his dad and his ashes in the trailer, why Victor and Thomas both came to Phoenix for. After digging through the trailer, Thomas tells Victor a memory of a dream with Victor’s dad in it, the conclusion that Thomas came to was that Victor’s dad was his vision, and that Thomas came for Victor’s
