"This is a beautiful place, Johnson said.
But you haven’t seen anything, Thomas said.
What else is there to see?”
When Johnson first arrived on the Reservation, he was amazed to see the beautiful sights that greeted him and the apparent easy life the people on the reservation were living. Johnson expressed his sentiments to Thomas, a person who all his life lived on the reservation and Thomas notes sadly that there are hidden things Johnson is unable to see and understand because he is not Native American. This shows that in many ways, the American Indians were alone in their struggles because the rest of the world simply refused to regard their struggles and refused chose instead to believe that there was nothing wrong happening on the numerous reservations all over the country.
Television constantly reminded Thomas of all he never owned.
Like many other Indians, Thomas spent his free time watching the TV and dreaming about all the things he never had and never will. The TV allowed Thomas to see how the white people lived and the material things they had. In comparison with the harsh lives the Indian lived, what was presented through various movies or TV programs seemed as an illusion, something that could never happen for the Indian people living on the reservation. Basic things like food were considered as being a luxury by the Indian people and seeing that the whites had food from abundance only highlighted even more the idea that the Indians were living in a harsh world.
Those white women are always perfect, you know?
Chess talks about her experience with white women and how she always felt inferior to them whenever she saw them. The reason why she felt inferior was because she always considered herself as being dirty in comparison to the way the white children looked. Chess told Thomas that no matter what she did, her clothes were never as clean as those the white children wore and she always had dirt on her. Whenever this is true or not is debatable but what is clear is the fact that these characters felt inferior in comparison with white people and thus they felt "dirty’’ in ways that can’t be explained.
