Rhetorical Analysis Of Superman And Me By Sherman Alexie

The book, Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates, is written as a letter to his son. Coates cuts into the experience of the father as advice too the son. He writes this letter to his son to educate and awaken his son to the logic of white supremacy and the obstacles he will face as a black man this world. However, Ta-Nehisi’s son isn’t the only audience. He exposes the readers too the effect of racism on Black America, from history until present day. The purpose of this essay is to conduct a rhetorical analysis on Ta-Nehisi Coates’, Between the World and Me regarding his usage of ethos, pathos and logos to unveil the ongoing effect of the system of racism that continues to cause major problems to our society.

Alexie goes on to demonstrate how his passion for reading influenced his childhood. He describes that, before he could even read, he would recognize what a paragraph was. Alexie explains, “I realized that a paragraph was a fence that held words” (Alexie 279). Then, Alexie further explains how he correlated other things in his life as paragraphs, such as the reservation in respect to the United States or the individual members of his family. He goes on to clarify how he found the Superman comic and viewed each panel, with text and illustrations, separately as its own paragraph. Alexie states that while reading the comic he says, “Aloud, I pretend to read the words” (Alexie 280). He knew these paragraphs together told a story and even though he could not read, he used the pictures to assume what the narrative was saying. With these details of his early beginnings of learning to read, the reader can further establish that his family’s economic status had no

Sherman Alexie recalls his childhood memory of learning to read, and his teaching experience in “The Joy of Reading and Writing: Superman and Me”. He devotes his interest to reading. By this way, he breaks the stereotype that Indian boys are expected to be stupid and dumb, and later on he becomes a successful writer because of his endeavor to read. Alexie vividly narrates his younger life by using metaphor and repetition with a confident tone, in order to strengthen his description of his reading talent, his influence to the other Indian boys and how he struggles in poverty to change his life.

In Sherman Alexie’s “Superman and Me,” he uses rhetorical strategies to achieve his purpose of reaching his audience. He uses analogies to depict something confusing with something simple to understand. Syntax gives the readers an idea of Alexie when he was first learning to read. Finally, his emphasis on anaphora allows the audience to see his relentlessness to keep reading. The use of analogy, syntax, and anaphora persuades his audience to agree with Alexie’s purpose of this essay.

What would you do if you could not read? What problems do you think you would come across? After reading Malcolm X’s “Learning to Read” and Sherman Alexie’s piece, “Superman and Me”, these are a few questions that a reader might ask themselves. Sherman Alexie and Malcolm X are both great writers. This was not always the case though. Malcolm X and Sherman Alexie taught themselves how to read. Alexie at a young age Malcolm X, as a young adult. After they learned to read and write they wrote for many reasons and about many topics. When reading these two essays, you can see that there are many things that are significantly the same as well as having some differences all throughout the text. These similarities and differences include the pathos in both essays, and the ethos that Alexie has that Malcolm does not have pertaining to the subject of their papers. In Malcolm X’s “Learning to Read” and Sherman Alexie’s “Superman and Me” they are both trying to persuade the reader that something needs to be done and why.

Superman and Sherman Alexie both have unique qualities about them. The passage states that Sherman Alexie could read complicated books at a young age while other kids had a hard time. Superman

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.

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 contrast, “Superman and Me “ by Sherman Alexie tells the story of Alexie, as a young Indian boy, fighting his way through life. Alexie’s autobiography tells a story of how tough life can be as a Spokane Indian boy. He lived in Eastern Washington State on the Spokane Indian Reservation, this is where he and his brother and sisters resided. Alexie stated that, “ We lived on a combination of irregular paychecks, hope, fear, and government surplus foods”(Alexie 1). Poor, below the poverty point, but managed to find a job here and there making them middle-class. With the money Alexie’s father makes he provided them with their every needs. Additionally his father buys books because he is an

Everyone knows Superman, the world-saving superhero, but he is just fiction. Another man named Sherman Alexie is a world-saver too. He had a tough childhood on an Indian reservation, but he pushed on and is now a world famous author. In one of his essays, “Superman and Me”, he talks about how he is like Superman in many ways. Alexie is very similar to Superman because they both try no matter if they are told to fail, both were “aliens”, and both are saving people’s lives.

Richard Rodriguez, the author of “The Hunger of Memory,” is a Mexican man who rose above prejudices to become a distinguished member of society through education. Sherman Alexie, the author of “Superman and Me,” is a Native American man who grew up on an Indian reservation with a love of books and a penchant for learning in an attempt to exceed further than the predetermined path set in front of him. Rodriguez perceives education as something that has built a division between him and his family but allowed for assimilation into American life and achieve more than the initial expectations of him, meanwhile, Alexie, who remains close to his family and defied all odds, perceives education as a life-saving tool that could potentially change

The essay “The Joy of Reading and Writing: Superman and Me” written by Sherman Alexie focuses around the authors childhood and his experiences with stereotypes and prejudice.

Little 1 Auzurae Little Professor Strange English 103 17 September 2014 Knowledge is Freedom People pay a lot of attention to their community and surroundings, especially as young children. They pick up habits and daily rituals from their family and friends. People talk like their loved ones using the same slang in relation to their area. Authors place of origin tend to influence their work.

In the first short story I read “Superman and Me”, the young boy Alexie, had a passion for reading, consequential from his love and admiration of his father.

Mr. Alexie describes his childhood as “lived on a combination of irregular paychecks, hope, fear, and government surplus food.” Even living in what some might call near poverty his father always had books staked all around the house. Sherman would pick up his father’s books even before he was able to understand them. When he started to read a comic book, he was able to decipher which words went with the images on the comic. He was able to teach himself to read this way. When he was in school, he was reading books way more advanced than his classmates did. He read everything he could find, not just books but cereal boxes, bulletin boards, and repair manuals. He could not seem to get enough to read.