Sherman Alexie's Junior

Sherman Alexie was a Indian boy with a passion to learn how to read. Despite the fact that Indians were known to not be educated, he was one of the few that learned. He started learning to read at a very young age. He would read his dad’s books and everything else he could get his hands on. The first book he read was a Superman comic book. That comic book left a big impact on the rest of Alexie’s life.

Reading was his outlet from the negative environment he grew up in, but also the way out. Sherman Alexie also uses selective diction to shape the struggles of young Native Americans in the broken school system. Words like sullen, defeated, resist, refuse and arrogant create the negative atmosphere of the Native American students are face with everyday. Discouraged and already defeated students are the kind Sherman Alexie tries to save because nobody bothers with them, a lost

Junior’s character arc is focused on him trying to figure out where he belongs and just what makes someone belong there. Is belonging part of birth? Choice? What is the power of a name? We see his struggle identity the clearest when he moves from the reservation to Reardan and is called Arnold rather than Junior. His decision to move splits his identity down the middle, and this novel is him trying to figure out who he is and who he wants to be. There is also a culture of defeat and poverty on the reservation. The poverty in this book, as a theme, is most clearly expressed by Arnold when he states: “poverty doesn’t give you strength or teach you about perseverance. No, poverty only teaches you how to be

In the ending paragraph he writes, “These days, I write novels, short stories, and poems. I visit schools and teach creative writing to Indian kids.” These two sentences certify all that he has said previously. For all the reader knows, Sherman Alexie’s whole story was full of dramatic and heartwarming events just to create a good paper. And as a reader one should understand that he not only needs to establish himself as a writer, but also as a struggling Indian boy living on a reservation. “… a Spokane Indian boy living with his family on the Spokane Indian Reservation in eastern Washington State. We were poor by most standards, but one of my parents usually managed to find some minimum-wage job or another, which made us middle-class by reservation standards. I had a brother and three sisters. We lived on a combination of irregular paychecks, hope fear, and government surplus food.” Alexie gains our trust by establishing himself as a struggling Indian

I am trying to save our lives.” In this quote Sherman Alexie states that he is like Superman in a way because he says that he wants to help the Indian kids have a better life. Alexie talks about his life and all the things that happened to him. Alexie talks about how it was hard for him because he was an Indian kid. Three points for this could be:How did Sherman Alexie have a hard time growing up?,How did Sherman Alexie deal with everyone who was bothering him and/or teasing him?,and

Sherman Alexie illustrates a subtle sarcasm that is very consistent among his stories. He conveys many of the current social issues that seem to be constant among those of Indian heritage. His main characters all have very similar characteristics: very laid back and socially conscious. An important characteristic that his characters share is a sense of wit and cynicism which helps convey Alexie's ideals in many regards.

When it comes to the topic of Native Americans and tradition most will agree that Sherman Alexie is not the typical Indian writer and that he has in effect isolated himself. Jess Row in his article “Without Reservation”, depicts Sherman Alexie as a storyteller that uses non developing dark humor which in turn portrays his theme among each short story in Blasphemy. I agree with Row’s argument that Alexie maintains a sense of humor throughout his writings but that it develops prematurely. I also believe that he does this purposefully, in doing this, his message is clearly defined to the reader and is always a shock at the end. After reading this article I have come to the conclusion that Sherman Alexie entails his dark humor and storytelling style to purposefully misinterpret Indians to demonstrate his cruel and genuine message.

“Alexie is a stand-up comedian, a songwriter, a screenwriter and producer (notably of the acclaimed film Smoke Signals), and has served on the Presidential Panel for the National Dialogue on Race and on the board of directors for the American Indian College Fund”(“About Alexie” 197). This fact is according to Ploughshares that is an American Literary Magazine that’s about Sherman Alexie. Sherman Alexie wrote a book named The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian and partially wrote traits of himself in one of the main characters named Junior but still didn’t include everything. One would have to think that Sherman Alexie and Junior have lots of character traits and physical traits that are in common but yet there is still lots missing.

In the first branch of his essay, Sherman Alexie explains growing up as a native american boy in a impoverished house hold with his dad. Who had a addiction to books, and one of those books would change Alexies's life forever. He picked up the book and something inside him sparked, though he didn't know

In the book,The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, Sherman Alexie portrays how many Indigenous people struggle with the problem of racism: in Alexie’s character’s case, it makes Junior doubt himself, but it also creates a pathway and a drive for Junior to leave the reservation and makes others and Junior stand up for himself and for his culture. To begin, Alexie makes Junior doubt his culture because Alexie made Junior believe that white people are better in general. Junior thinks this because even the people around Junior think that white people are better and because they have more hope a dialogue from Junior and his parents prove this ,”Who has the most hope?’ ‘White people,’ my parents said at the same time,”(Alexie 45). This

Committing crimes as horrendous as mass shootings at schools should be dealt with the highest punishment available under the constitution. Mass shooters like Adam Lanza, who in cold blood murdered 20 children and 6 staff members in an elementary school located in the quiet town of Sandy Hook, Connecticut. There is no rehabilitation for a psychopathic killer who takes the life of TWENTY innocent children with neither hesitation nor reason. Adam Lanza is the prime example of a criminal who deserved to be tried with the death penalty as an option. He held no remorse, before he went to the elementary school and slaughtered 20 kids; he murdered his 52 year old mother while she was sleeping in her bedroom. These are characteristics of a man who deserved the death penalty as punishment for the murder of 26 people and suffering inflicted on the families. This man was neither innocent nor deserving of sympathy. In cases similar to Sandy Hook, the death penalty should be an option.

How will I make the best of my time at Colorado Christian University? The same way I have made the best of the rest of my life. You see, I am very much the anomaly of almost every statistic on troubled teenagers. My childhood was not a pleasant one, as my mother’s second husband was not a very nice man. Because our family fell through the cracks in the Child Protective system, I found myself in a precarious position very early in life. Despite being a good student in high school, I was at the age of 16, a teenage runaway. While living on my own and working full time to support myself while finishing my junior and senior year in high school, I made every attempt to complete my education. However, life did end up getting the best of me, and I ended up dropping out of high school in my senior year, just three months shy of graduation.

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.

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.

When I was in high school, I had an opportunity to do a short interview with one of the nurses at University of Vermont Medical Center. I set a date to visit the nurse's office, and she began to show me around the hospital, and patients as well. She explained that she loves patients, especially children, so she decided to be a nurse and loves her job. But one thing she does not like is that she has to spend a lot of time doing paperwork on the computer every time she sees a patient. When I had appointments before, I hated waiting for the doctor since they would take forever to come out. But during this interview, I saw how busy the doctors, nurses, and staffs are. Also, I got a chance to see what a regular checkup is for the patients. I learned