Alexie Reflection

First, In the memoir by Alexie the overall purpose was to indicate how being able to read afforded him the ability to overcome intense social and cultural pressures that were imposed upon him merely because of his race. I believe Alexie was able capture the aforementioned purpose of his work in a clear and impactful way. For instance, early on he stated that how he had discovered what a paragraph was even before being able to read. Moreover, he stated that “[t]he words inside a paragraph worked together for a common purpose. They had some specific reason for being inside the same fence.” (Alexie 1). Thus, the statement by Alexie was designed to invoke the thought process of the reader and guide them through his experience in

There are some children, like the Indian boy in the short story that will simply not be given a chance to learn how to read and must adapt quickly to survive. Alexie took his fate into his own hands at an early age. Although the author never states the age of the boy, we are to imagine he is grade school age. Alexie states that the boy’s father had an extensive book collection from which he had taught himself how to read, but never mentions if the father had helped his son to learn to read. I imagine the father was too busy trying to support his family by working minimum wage jobs and finding work where he could find it. Needless to say, Alexie adapted well given his situation. These experiences give him accreditation with the reader,

Alexie's father was the reason he began to read which later became his passion. His father loved to read, and even though they did not have a ton of money, his father went out of his way to stock up on books. One-day Alexie decided to pick up one of his father's books and taught himself how to read. Before that, he had never read a book and could not even understand the words. A paragraph intrigued him; each house on the reservation was a paragraph, and each member of his family was a paragraph. The family members were separate people; however, there were still related making all of them together an essay. Then there was the Superman comic book he picked up one day. Although he could not read the panels of words the illustrations told the story. He would make up a story to go with the pictures and pretend to read the panels. Looking back at these times Alexie realized how lucky he was growing up with all these resources to teach

They carry neither pencil nor pen. They stare out the window. They refuse and resist.” When Alexie was their age, nobody bothered to teach him because he is also Indian. He is trying to tell them that being Indian does not affect intelligence, and Alexie is proof

Purpose: Alexie highlights how he ultimately overcame the hardships suffered during his early years due to his Indian ethnicity and displays how Native Americans were, and continue, to suffer from discrimination.

The key rhetorical device that Alexie used was pathos in order to cause the reader to feel some emotion of pity, sympathy, and sorrow. This is used towards the middle when he explains the struggle he had to face at a young age when teaching himself how to read and explains how others thought of Indians with this capability, he then writes, “A smart Indian is a dangerous person, widely feared and ridiculed by Indians and non-Indian alike. They wanted me to stay quiet

He even explains this when he says, “My father loved books, and since I loved my father with an aching devotion, I decided to love books as well” (Alexie 279). Alexie’s upbringing shows the reader that he was not wealthy, but he was still able to be exposed to massive amounts of literature and therefore could contribute to his education. His family’s wealth could be attributed to less opportunity in life, but in this case, it was not.

While Alexie states his voice by using metaphor, he emphasizes the meaning of reading repeatedly in his essay. He stresses how he strives to read variety of books, and he records that,” I read the books my father brought home from the pawnshops and secondhand. I read the books I borrowed from the library. I read the backs of cereal boxes… I read magazines. I read anything that had words and paragraphs” (18). Alexie lists out all the material he has read with the same sentence structure, yet he does not conclude all these things in one sentence. He exemplifies his passion to reading, for he tries to save his life. Due to his parallel repetition, Alexie impresses the audience by these

Throughout this essay, Alexie uses an extended analogy. Alexie’s analogies help the reader understand the purpose of a paragraph. He realized that “a paragraph was a fence that held words. The words inside a paragraph worked together for a common purpose.” He compares a paragraph with a fence which brings clarity to his understanding of a paragraph. From this understanding, he began to think of everything in terms of paragraphs. For example, “Our reservation was a small paragraph within the United States. My family’s house was a paragraph, distinct from the other paragraphs of Labrets to the north, the Fords to our south and the Tribal School to the west.” He uses this idea that each paragraph is an identity and inside those identities are smaller ones. Alexie even says that his family is like a seven-paragraph essay, each different but linked by genetics and common experiences. This allusion allows the audience to see Alexie’s point of view on the world.

Growing up as a Native American boy on a reservation, Sherman Alexie was not expected to succeed outside of his reservation home. The expectations for Native American children were not very high, but Alexie burst out of the stereotype and expectations put by white men. Young Native Americans were not expected to overcome their stereotypes and were forced to succumb to low levels of reading and writing “he was expected to fail in a non-Indian world” (Alexie 3), but Alexie was born with a passion for reading and writing, so much so that he taught himself to read at age three by simply looking at images in Marvel comics and piecing the words and pictures together. No young Native American had made it out of his reservation to become a successful writer like he did. This fabricates a clear ethos for Alexie, he is a perfect underdog in an imperfect world.

In the beginning of the essay, Alexie talks about how knowledge is a power that opens a window to success by using an anecdote about his personal experience with knowledge. As Alexie talks about his childhood in the beginning, he says, “We lived on a combination of irregular paychecks, hope, fear and government surplus food...” (Alexie). When Alexie discusses the conditions his family lived in, he is setting this frame of pity that makes the reader understand that education wasn’t the first thing on their mind, but what they we’re going to eat next. Later on in the beginning, Alexie explains how his father surrounded him with books and how his love for books started. His love for books was sparked from the love his father had for books. Alexie states this when he says, “...My father loved books...I loved my father...I decided to love books as well...” (Alexie). Alexie also explains how he didn’t understand at first when he first picked up a book but soon learned that “The words inside a paragraph worked together for a common purpose...this knowledge delighted me. I began to think of everything in terms of paragraphs...”(Alexie). This could be seen as a power because although he doesn’t understand, he’s learning how to understand what he’s reading and this could count as one of his first steps to success. As Alexie explains his personal experience with knowledge, he proves how he is an example of

“Superman and Me” involves the author, Sherman Alexie as an adolescent boy. Alexie lived in Washington on a Spokane Indian Reservation where he grew up with parents who were poor most of the time. Although, his parents “usually managed to find some minimum-wage job or another” (Alexie). The father of Alexie went to a Catholic school where he read whatever he came into sight with. Alexie looked up to his father; therefore, he wanted to be an avid reader just like his dad. Before he could even read, Alexie picked up many books. Although words look foreign to Alexie, he understood the purpose of a paragraph, and “realized that a paragraph was a fence that held words” (Alexie). Everything he looked at, he referred to it as a paragraph. Living a life inside of a paragraph, Alexie one day picked up a Superman comic book. This day became the day he learned how to read American literature. Looking at pictures in the comic book, Alexie assumes what he sees. This method eventually taught him the way of reading English. In the essay, Alexie states, “I was smart. I was arrogant. I was lucky. I read books late into the night, until I could barely keep my eyes open…” Not the typical student, Alexie would be told to be quiet in the classroom. Never did he expect being smarter would come with consequences. Is this the kind of American Dream Alexie wanted? Despite all the learning and being an outcast, the author became a writer, as well as

Despite these ignorant accusations, Alexie refused to not only be a statistic within his community, but a failure as well. This is shown as he wrote, “I refused to fail. I was smart. I was arrogant. I was lucky. I read books late into the night, until I could barely keep my eyes open” (pg. 17). He jumped at the chance to read anything in his tracks, giving him the opportunity to expand his mind and knowledge base. He fought with his classmates on a daily basis because they expected him to stay silent if questions were asked in class. Alexie refused to do so; he bypassed his classmates intellectually and would not let anyone make him feel inferior.

Sherman Alexie choose to reflect on his experience through the education system with the purpose of highlighting the mistreatment of Native American both inside and outside their own culture in “Indian Education”. This was accomplished through the structure of the narrative and use of techniques throughout it. For example, Alexie structures his writing into short, segmented parts based on his level of education going from the first grade to post-graduation. This type of structure allows for a fast-paced narrative where only the most impactful moments of Alexie’s education are shown. Moments such as him being ostracized by those at his reservation because he, “kissed the white girl, I felt the good-byes I was saying to my entire tribe”(Alexie par. 43) or when he overcame his bully and “the little warrior in me roared to life and knocked Frenchy to the ground” (Alexie par. 4) all demonstrated how his culture affected his life. Furthermore, Alexie uses a combination of dark humor and irony throughout the narrative in order to help explain his purpose. In the eighth grade, Alexie makes fun of the bulimic girls in his school by saying “Give me your lunch if you’re just going to throw it up”(Alexie par.51) when the irony of the situation is that Alexie is starving because he lives in poverty while these girls are wasting their food by throwing it up. Sherman Alexie's way of storytelling through short, fast-paced, segmented parts intertwined with dark humor and irony helps achieve his purpose for writing the narrative which was that Native Americans were not only persecuted outside of their culture, but

They would make him stay quiet in class because most of them did not like to speak during class with their non-Indian teacher. Even though at home they would talk nonstop about anything. These kids did not grow up to have opportunities they could have had because they were not given a proper education. The non-Indian teachers did not push the kids to learn and they did not care about their student's education. The kids knew that they were expected to fail with their education, and they grew up knowing it was okay to fail because they were Indian. However, Alexie did not accept that. He knew he could pass and that he was smart, so he challenged himself to learn out of the classroom. Reading became the center of his education; he read late into the night, at recess, during lunch, after class, and whenever he could make time to. As a boy he read everything he could find with words on it including all the books his dad had at home, newspapers, library books, cereal boxes, posters, manuals. Even though he loved books he knew reading saved his education and his entire life. His future was opened up to new opportunities because he was educated.