Sherman Alexie Metaphors

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

Alexie spoke of his path of becoming a writer from his childhood that there were blockades he had to overcome against Indians while showing how easy it is to give up as with those around him, yet he then speaks to all youths, both Indian and non-Indian about their power to become whatever they want yet how society at the same time has already crushed the spirits of some. King, on the other hand, persuades aspiring writers that a lot of reading is necessary and time must always somehow be made to do so, yet he then talks about his son Owen who aspired to become a saxophone player but even with all the time and effort, he was not joyful given that he only put necessary time towards his lessons and practice. The basic idea is that we should do things that we love as that is necessary in life and the things we love will not make us feel stressed or be

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.

(Well, most of them.)”, also contains many different language styles and rhetorical devices. Imagery is very evident in this passage. By using very descriptive adjectives in his writing, like “handsome, blue-eyed”, “impossibly pale neck”, “splattered with Day-Glo Hollywood war paint”, and “greasy popcorn, flat soda pop, fossilized licorice rope”, Alexie paints a vivid image in the mind of the reader. Any writer can describe something, but he takes it one step higher with adjectives that appeal to the senses, especially sight. This imagery adds intensity and value to the piece that otherwise would not have been there. Much like in “Indian Education”, “I Hated Tonto (Still Do)” contains repetition. In the last section of the essay, Alexie discusses cinematic Indians and how he was so different from them, which really discouraged him as a child. He explains, “A cinematic Indian is supposed to climb mountains. I am afraid of heights. A cinematic Indian is supposed to wade into streams and sing songs. I don’t know how to swim. A cinematic Indian is supposed to be a warrior. I haven’t been in a fistfight since sixth grade and she beat the crap out of me.” The repetition of the phrase, “A cinematic Indian is supposed to”, in contrast to what Alexie was like emphasizes how he would often feel that his dreams were unattainable. Overall,

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.

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.

Row, in “ Without Reservation” emphasizes that Alexie is a storyteller and not a prose fiction writer. A story teller, he defines, has work that, “... contains, openly or covertly, something useful …” (Row 1). Row goes on by giving evidence to why Alexie is a storyteller, and not your usual Indian writer. As he explains, Alexie reinstates the fragmented and ruptured Indian life instead of the political topics associated with them. With this idea in mind, Row believes that Alexie instills this behavior in his writing to give way for his sharp moral endings. These genuine moral endings, installment of stereotypes and Indian beliefs with consequences

Sherman Alexie was just three years old when he had taught himself to read. He believed that he saved himself by learning to read. He was a young little boy who was Spokane Indian, who lived with his family; a mother, father, brother, and three sisters, on a Spokane Indian reservation in eastern Washington state. Sherman Alexie uses pathos to get you; his reader to relate to him. He describes himself as a little Indian boy who taught himself to read at an early age.

When Alexie went back to the reservation, his family wasn’t surprised to see him. They’d been expecting him back since the day he left for Seattle. For example, “there’s an old Indian poet who said that Indians can reside in the city, but they can never live there”(web). That’s as close to the truth as any of them could get.Mostly, Alexie would watch television. For weeks, he flipped through channels, searched for answers in the game shows and soap operas. His mother would circle the want ads in red and hand the paper to me, and Alexie felt boring in the reservation. His own mother asked him what he would rest his life, but Alexie didn’t respond accurately. There were little nothing to become in the reservation and the mother was asking him

The final two paragraphs of Sherman Alexie's "Superman and Me" include the following three sentences: “I was trying to save my life,” “They [students] are trying to save their lives,” and “I am trying to save our lives,” all convey the meaning and purpose of the essay. The goal for his essay was to eliminate the Indian stereotype regarding education and provide hope to other Indians, informing them that they can be intelligent. All three sentences support these two ideas. For instance, the first sentence tells the audience that the author created a better life for himself and in order to do that, Alexie illustrates how reading and writing had such an effect on him. As an Indian himself, he claims that his race is faced with prejudice and is

With extra reading he did, Alexie was able to understand concepts and learn quicker and even participate in class even though his classmates wanted him to “stay quite when the non-Indian teacher asked for answers” (paragraph 6). He was exhibiting rebellious tenancies just from wanting to learn more. The society around Alexie were promoting ignorance for the Native Americans all the way down to the peers around him. It was basically uncool for someone to learn and read non-Native American literature and Alexie went against the norm. Reading opened the his eyes to how the world around him works, further than within the boundaries of the community around him making him able to free the minds of the children he teaches children to love learning rebell against the regressive norm.

“Absolutely True Diary of A Part-Time Indian” Theme Paragraph One message of the novel “Absolutely True Diary of A Part-Time Indian” by Sherman Alexie is that the unconditional love and support of loved ones inspires both better confidence and achievements. Despite growing up on the poverty stricken Spokane reservation where both the world and his own body have turned against him, Junior faces his challenges with self-assurance and ambition. Junior’s family is the premier example of this thematic statement, for their support for Junior is one of the major reasons he was able to come so far. Since both the financial support and the emotional support they provided to allow Junior to follow his ambitions, Junior feels he is worth what the world