Alexie Visits His Family That Still Live On The Reservation

Most of Alexie’s writing reflects life on the reservations today. The poverty, oppression, commodity food, and alcoholism are the main themes in his stories. The title story of his collection The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fist Fight in Heaven, however, deals with the life of an Indian man who has left the reservation to live in Seattle and some of the obstacles he faces in the white world. We never know the main character’s name, probably because he feels like a nameless nobody in this strange world. He is alienated and told that he doesn’t belong even

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.

of alcoholism and its impact upon the lives of the Native Americans, Alexie does not aim to put

In Sherman Alexie’s short story “Superman and Me,” Alexie writes about his life as an Indian child growing up on the Spokane Indian Reservation in the state of Washington. He depicts his life from when he was three years old, living on the reservation, up to his current self, as an adult writer who frequently visits that reservation. He primarily describes his interest in reading and how it has changed his life for the better.

In a Bill Moyer’s interview “Sherman Alexie on Living Outside Borders”, Moyer’s interviews Native American author and poet Sherman Alexie. In the Moyer’s and Company interview, Alexie shares his story about the struggles that he endured during his time on a Native American reservation located at Wellpinit, Washington. During the interview, Alexie goes in-depth about his conflicts that plagued the reservation. In an award-winning book by Sherman Alexie called “The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian”, Alexie writes semi-autobiography that reveals his harsh life on the reservation through a fictional character named Arnold Spirit Junior. In Alexie’s semi-autobiography, Alexie shares his struggles of a poor and alcoholic family, the

Authors write for many reasons; most often because they want to tell a story. This is definitely the case with Sherman Alexie, “a poet, fiction writer, and filmmaker known for witty and frank explorations of the lives of contemporary Native Americans.” He grew up on the Spokane and Coeur D’Alene Indian Reservations, and has devoted much of his adult life to telling stories of his life there. Alexie expertly uses language and rhetorical devices to convey the intensity and value of his experiences.

Alexie suggests that people should not limit themselves based on stereotypes of their environment or backgrounds. The author supports this by claiming, “A smart Indian is a dangerous person…” (6). Here, Alexie is showing that when someone overcomes the stigma surrounding them, they can be a force to be reckoned with. Alexie also discusses the personalities and habits of Native kids. He states, “We were Indian children expected to be stupid…” (6). He then goes on to describe how Indian children struggle with basic reading in classes but can seem to remember dozens of traditional Powwow songs. Lastly, Sherman Alexie also alludes to how Indian kids are expected to fail in the non-Native world. “Those who failed were accepted by Indians and...pitied

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.

Alexie’s narrator describes a story of assumption and discrimination through not only the thoughts of the narrator and his life, but also how the narrator explains his thoughts and the diction he uses as he recalls certain moments. Throughout the passage, the narrator demonstrates how isolated he is, not only in the country where hia people are shunned, but also with others that are in a situation similar to his. Not only is there a feeling of loneliness and isolation, but also guilt of relation to how Indians are being treated today. Through stories of realistic fiction, Alexie addresses serious issues that others fail to.

As he grew up to become a writer, we see pain in the story he tells. “I loved those books, but I also knew that love had only one purpose. I was trying to save my life” (pg.18). Alexie wanted to be someone greater than what others expected him to be. People would put him down constantly, but he fought back just as much. He tried to save himself from the stereotypes of being just another dumb Indian. He had more determination to prove others wrong when it came too exceeding in reading to further excel in his daily life.

In “A Drug Called Tradition,” Alexie’s humor efficaciously shows the bitter reality on the reservation. For example, at the beginning of the story, Alexie uses humor to reflect poverty on the reservation. After Junior shouts at Thomas, questioning “[h]ow come your fridge is always fucking empty,” Thomas goes inside the refrigerator and sits down, replying Junior “[t]here…It ain’t empty no more” (Alexie 12). As seen in this example, having Thomas sit inside the refrigerator and reply in a humorous tone, Alexie is successful in mirroring the issue of poverty, or the bitter reality, on the reservation. This point can also be supported by Stephen F. Evans’s essay, "'Open containers': Sherman Alexie's Drunken Indians,” in which Evans discusses Alexie’s use of satire and irony in his stories and poems. As Evans claims that “[c]onsidered as a whole, the best artistic moments in Alexie's poems, stories, and novels lie in his construction of a satiric mirror that reflects the painful reality of lives,” this further verifies the argument that humor in Alexie’s stories helps reflect the bitter actuality on the reservation (49).

Sherman J. Alexie, is a short story written in the first person focusing on two Native American Men who grew up together on a Reservation for Native Americans but have been estranged from each other since they were teenagers. Victor who is the narrator of this story is a young man who lost faith in his culture and its traditions, while Thomas our second main character is a deeply rooted traditional storyteller. In the beginning of the story Victor, our Native American narrator learns the death of his father. Jobless and penniless, his only wish is to go to Phoenix, Arizona and bring back his father’s ashes and belongings to the reservation in Spokane. The death of Victor’s father leads him and Thomas to a journey filled with childhood

In Sherman Alexie’s novel The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven shows the struggles of daily Native American life, which is shown through the point of view of male character. All though out the book the following three questions appear: ‘What does it mean to live as an Indian in this time? What does it mean to be an Indian man? and What does it mean to live on an Indian reservation?’ Alexie uses literary devices such as point of view, imagery, characterization to make his point that the conflict of being an Indian in the U.S. in these short stories using the following short stories “An Indian Education” and “Amusement”. “An Indian Education” uses both imagery and characterization to show us what the narrator is

Sherman Alexie is an American writer and poet and his literary works focus mostly on discrimination that Indians face. In most of his work, he criticizes white Americans for taking away land from the Indians and for ill-treating them. Sherman Alexie has a unique way of putting across his thoughts. He is very frank, has a wit that is quick and a dark sense of humor .He does not hesitate to write about the harsh and gruesome reality of the lives of Indians at reservations. He believes that “The real interesting stuff is in the cellar and the attic.” That is why his books have always been so popular. He says, "I was always the depressed guy in the basement. But I've borrowed their sense of humor and made it darker and more deadly - a weapon of self-defense. Being funny you win hearts quicker; people laughing are more apt to listen."

Sherman Alexie book “The Absolutely True Diary of a Part – Time Indian” is a comical yet heartbreaking true story of an Indian teenage boy living on the reservation trying to figure out his own identity. Throughout the book the reader can see the identity struggles that the main character Arnold Spirit Jr (Junior) faces. Being on the reservation is both a home and a place Junior is ready to leave. Through Juniors illustrations and……