Morality and Guilt intertwined

     
          Although Zits learns the importance of making wholesome decisions
throughout the book, he also discovers that morality comes with the feeling of guilt. In the first chapter of the book, before he takes his first trip back in time, Zits describes himself as ashamed. “I like to start fires. And I am ashamed that I'm a fire starter. I'm ashamed of everything, and I'm ashamed of being ashamed.” (Alexie 8) Ashamed is much different than guilt: being ashamed implies that one is upset with the values he/she is. Guilt is the feeling of regret or remorse after making a bad decision. Zits’ morals build from none to some as he lives through a consequential event in each character’s life. As the story unfolds, his change in heart becomes more and more evident; for example, when faced with the decision to either mutilate a dead soldier or be shunned by his tribe in Little Bighorn, Zits is able to reason with himself by thinking, “does this little white soldier deserve to die because one of his fellow soldiers slashed my throat?”(Alexie 77): something he would never have done with his prior ethics. His definitive transformation is unveiled at the end of the book where he acknowledges the weight of his guilty conscience for the first time. Before, Zits identified morality solely as a trait that he did not have, and he associated its absence with the reasoning for the lack of love in his life. After many trips back in time, Zits realizes that revenge and anger are subordinate to the feelings of making a good decision and being loved. Although he finally embraced what it means to be a principled human, Zits is filled with regret of the immoral decisions that never truly leave one's mind: “I used to hate the rain. But now I want it to pour. I want it to storm. I want to be clean.”(Alexie 159)  In "Flight", Sherman Alexie displays Zits’ honest shift between being ashamed and being guilty with the underlying theme of morality.