Sherman Alexie's The Summer Of Black Widows

With Alexie knowing that learning and knowing how to read was a skill that everyone needed, he encouraged many other young Indians to learn how to. He would tell them, “I am smart. I am arrogant. I am lucky.” He was trying to save their lives. He wanted to teach them how to read because they are smart, they are arrogant, and they are lucky. In the story it says, “ They look at me with bright eyes and arrogant wonder.” They looked up to his, and believed him. Then, there were those few that were defeated from the start that would sit in the back of the classroom and would ignore

Alexie uses first hand experiences all throughout his article to depict the reality of American Indian’s lives. By appealing to the pathos, he gives his readers the ability to empathize with him, experiencing both the trials and triumphs. His use of analogies provides his audience with visuals that portray his experiences more accurately. When Alexie writes about himself in

Alexie appeals to the adolescent memories and emotions of his readers by using straightforward connections and allusions to exhibit how unconventional he was growing up. The premise of his story is the process he undertook to educate himself; he reveals that the beginning of his education started with learning to interpreting Superman comic books. By including the allusion of Superman in his story, he is comparing his personal experiences to the well known superhero. The first experience Alexie includes was the action of Superman knocking down a door; this acts as a symbol for his process of overcoming mental roadblocks. As his intelligence grew on the Native American reservation, he became more out of the ordinary, and his high level of education was almost a superpower parallel to the capabilities Superman possessed. But similarly to Superman’s weakness around kryptonite, Alexie was also weakened by his

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

Black Widows bare similarities to the unnecessary evil in our world. Showing excessive violent tendencies, these creatures represent a broader inspection of our society. Through many examples of literary devices in Gordon Grice’s essay “Caught in the Widow’s Web”, black widow spiders are compared to these evil tendencies in our world..

Alexie also illustrates throughout his stories the lack of community among his people. In This is what it means to say Phoenix, Arizona he illustrates his opinion of the tribal council. In this case he shows the robotic attributes of the council through the use of repetition when he asks the council for assistance. Though his father is dead and the urgency of the matter the council still offers minimal help. Alexie is also ardent in showing the hypocrisy that surrounds most of the situations in his stories, such as the character that looks at his white girlfriend the same way the store clerk

Sedaris writes of the fact that although many times unaware, we are constantly surrounded by life. He attempts to enlighten the reader about the constant movement around us. Quote 1 reveals David's heart towards the importance of all animals no matter how pesky or lovable they are. Quote 2 does the same. We are often oblivious to the fact that we are always being watched, just as we watch those around us who go unaware of our eyes. Most people care about another species such as a dog, cat, or otherwise. Sedaris happens to love spiders. He attempts to show others that there is value in every life no matter how irrelevant theirs seems to ours. Sedaris says in Quote 3 that because his love for spiders doesn't involve large pets with fur, it does

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.

Living Outside the Normal Expectations: How a Single Book Can Chang Your Life. It is funny how something as simple as a heroic picture book can alter someones life. Such as what Sherman Alexie a Author and spokesman who has wrote about his experience in the essay of " The Joy of Reading and Writing: Superman and Me". with in this article Alexie explains his life as an impoverished native american boy teaching himself to read.

The readings we did within the past few months, I connected more with these two articles: The case of reparations by Coates and Race, Wealth, and Equality by Oliver. Throughout the articles, we understand the struggle that black communities face because of the system that’s built to prevent them to succeed in life. As an African American in today’s society it has been difficult to find opportunities in life because of the injustice and discrimination that the particular community is experiencing. However, I will compare the two articles with two outside source I found the New Jim Crow by Alexander, she effectively argues in her book how racism is evolving over time, but Alexander poorly makes the analogy of The New Jim Crow, compare to the

“In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth (Genesis 1:1).” The love and respect for the outdoors is something everyone should value, many things promote this way of life, due to its extravagance and true freedom in this great creation. They can sometimes go to that outdoor place in books, poems, art, and even some news articles. Much of this world doesn’t get to see the other side of America; they don’t get to see the best part, the outdoors.

I am afraid of spiders, because when I watch them on TV and they are in people’s bed and houses and if they bite you it makes a giant bite mark as big as a your hand, its inside is blue and the outside is red.

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.

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

The purpose of the plant's mention in the poem is to be the ironic stage for what is soon to occur. To complete the image, the speaker declares that this white spider on a white plant "hold[s] up a moth / [l]ike a white piece of rigid satin cloth" (2-3). White again, the moth also represents innocence, just as the spider and heal-all do. This model is ironic: an innocent spider on an innocent heal-all holds up an innocent dead moth. The simile in which the speaker describes the moth, "[l]ike a white piece of satin cloth" (3), refers to a piece of a torn wedding dress, symbolizing the vulnerability of things considered to be holy, such as holy matrimony. Frost designates the spider, heal-all, and moth as "[a]ssorted characters of death and blight" (4), suggesting that all three had a part in the moth's fatality. Ironically, Frost uses the word "blight" inferring the heal-all's backward influence, such as if aloe were to cause an infection. Frost again uses irony proclaiming that these characters are "[m]ixed ready to begin the morning right" (5), as though they are ‘part of a balanced breakfast,' a ritualistic practice which ensues good health. In this line, the poet implies that the death scene and others like it must occur in order for life to continue on each morning for particular creatures; this spider's breakfast is an occurrence of Darwinist natural selection. The poet then conveys this breakfast