The Great American Indian Novel By Sherman Alexie

A rough childhood would be an understatement when talking about a minority child’s. Sherman Alexie’s “Indian Education” illustrates the life of a young Native American boy from early 1st grade, to the final moments he walked down to get his diploma. Along the way we are confronted by challenging suspects who test his patience and character. Being bullied in first grade, Victor tries to gain respect by having a physical confrontation with his teasers. Little does this do, because for the next two years, it continues. When in fourth grade, one of his teachers places the thought into his head of him becoming a doctor. The following year his cousin start to abuse rubber cement, and is being a negative role model on young Victor. Once in middle school, Victor then attends a school in a nearby town where many of the people are completely different compared to his last educational institution. Being that many of the “white girls” are bulimic, Victor feels a great culture shock and even confronts one girl and then states to her, “Give me your lunch if you’re just going to throw it up.” Once he is in his late high school years, Victor, the basketball champ, passes out at a school dance and is rushed to the hospital where he is diagnosed with diabetes. His teacher was quick to think the worst when he questioned if he had been drinking, since he “[knew] all about these Indian kids…start

In American Indian Stories, University of Nebraska Press Lincoln and London edition, the author, Zitkala-Sa, tries to tell stories that depicted life growing up on a reservation. Her stories showed how Native Americans reacted to the white man’s ways of running the land and changing the life of Indians. “Zitkala-Sa was one of the early Indian writers to record tribal legends and tales from oral tradition” (back cover) is a great way to show that the author’s stories were based upon actual events in her life as a Dakota Sioux Indian. This essay will describe and analyze Native American life as described by Zitkala-Sa’s American Indian Stories, it will relate to Native Americans and their interactions with American societies, it will

Popular culture has shaped our understanding and perception of Native American culture. From Disney to literature has given the picture of the “blood thirsty savage” of the beginning colonialism in the new world to the “Noble Savage,” a trait painted by non-native the West (Landsman and Lewis 184) and this has influenced many non native perceptions. What many outsiders do not see is the struggle Native American have on day to day bases. Each generation of Native American is on a struggle to keep their traditions alive, but to function in school and ultimately graduate.

"Double-consciousness this sense of always looking at one 's self through the eyes of others, of measuring one 's soul by the tape of a world that looks on in amused contempt and pity" (Dubois, 8). W.E.B. Du Bois had a perfect definition of double-consciousness. The action of viewing one 's self through the eyes of others and measuring one 's soul. Looking at all of the thoughts good or bad coming from others. This is present in the main character of the book The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, by Sherman Alexie. The Absolutely True Diary is about a boy named Junior that is fourteen years old and living on the Spokane Reservation. Junior was born with too

In Alexie “Do Not Go Gentle,” there is a recurring element of assimilation for the Native Americans. I will be discussing how it is problematic as it shows how the underlying issue of societal pressure towards the Native Americans freedom and liberty as a human being. In the article, “Italian American Identity: To Be or Not To Be” Michael Parenti focuses on the subject of acculturation and assimilation being formed in the United States. This article goes hand in hand with Alexie “Do Not Go Gentle” with race domination being a factor in assimilation against the minorities versus the larger society.

My argument uses the umbrella term of systematic oppression to allow me to describe the many side effects that violence and misrepresentation has had on Native Americans. It involves suicide rates, alcoholism and how this has pushed Native Americans into the cycle of poverty that is giving rise to more stereotypes. The thesis later focuses on my counter-argument of how Native Americans denounced the two main stereotypes of “The Drunken Indian” and “The Poor Indian” because of their entrepreneurial skills and creativity. These characteristics have allowed them to come out of this intergenerational grief pattern and become more confident in their culture and identity.

These stereotypical binaries of the childlike and savage Indian are directly linked to the narratives of white settler society and colonization. Essentially, by classifying all First Nation cultures under a monolith of a few stereotypes the white setter society claimed dominance over the First Nation peoples as they created the lens through which the First Nation’s history and identity would be read. The influence of the press and government policies lead to the acceptance of these stereotypes as defining truths about First Nations people which aided the settler societies in solving the Indian problem by destroying what it meant to be Indian. In this way, the stereotypes not only developed the idea of assimilation to save the Indian, but they

Vance (1995) stated, “For nearly 500 years there has been a very oppressive, dishonest and manipulative message being voiced by the dominant white Angelo culture towards Native Americans, This has caused a great distrust, anger and conflicting attitudes for the Native American community” (p.1).

The American desire to culturally assimilate Native American people into establishing American customs went down in history during the 1700s. Famous author Zitkala-Sa, tells her brave experience of Americanization as a child through a series of stories in “Impressions of an Indian Childhood.” Zitkala-Sa, described her journey into an American missionary where they cleansed her of her identity. In “Impressions of an Indian Childhood,” Zitkala-Sa uses imagery in order to convey the cruel nature of early American cultural transformation among Indian individuals.

Poverty hits children hardest in the world. When I was younger, the Armenians had faced the hard facts of poverty after they break up with the Soviet Union, war with Azerbaijan, and a devastating earthquake. My family moved into our motherland Armenia while our nation was going through these huge dramatic changes. Furthermore the poor economy and inflation destroyed numerous hopes and futures. In the novel, The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, by Sherman Alexie, Arnold Spirit, describes his hardships involving poverty living on Spokane reservation. The people on the reservation are stuck in a prison of poverty. They are imprisoned there due to lack of resources and general contempt from the outside world, so they are left with little chance for success. Like Arnold, I also went through hardships regarding poverty and education.

     In Conclusion the author, Leslie Silko, displays the poverty and hopelessness that the Native Americans faced because of the white man. The Author elaborates this feeling of hopelessness in the Indians myth explaining the origin of the white man. As a result

Institutional structures have the power to configure adolescent growth through repression and liberation. The capability that adolescents have to create their own destiny and choose their own social institution can be limited, but not impossible. In Trites article, “Do I dare disturb the universe?” the author argues that kids have personal power, whether they acknowledge it and use it to their own advantage or not. Michel Foucault declares that “Power is everywhere; not because it embraces everything, but because it comes from everywhere” (Trites). Power is inevitable, there will never be no such thing as power in this world; it will never diminish or fade. Trites also conveyed that, “power not only acts on a subject but, in a transitive

Alexie's poem "How To Write the Great American Indian Novel" blends several dilemmas at once. Underlying to the poem and the act of writing the `Great American Indian Novel' is the awareness in

In Sherman Alexie’s novel, The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven(1993), nearly all of the characters suffer from alcoholism. Those who do not drink, cannot escape the external backlash from an alcoholic environment. Through the stories of the characters in the book, both on and off the reservation, the author is able to distinguish arguments for and against the white people on whether or not they are to blame for the problems Native Americans have faced related to alcoholism. The fate of the Native Americans is seemingly inevitable. Do the Native Americans deserve the stereotypes that have been inflicted upon them, or were they unable to prevent it? Through Sherman Alexie’s novel, he sheds light on the stereotypes placed on Native Americans not only by other races of people, but also self-inflicted, relating to the damaging effects alcohol has had on their people.

Almost all teens experience some sort of an identity crisis. They struggle with finding a clearer sense of themselves. Arnold Spirit Jr., a 14-year-old reservation Indian, faces an identity crisis when he leaves his reservation to go to school in Reardan, a town inhibited by white people. To begin, Arnold moves between different settings, and when he does, there is a change in his identity. Moreover, there is a change in his character as he moves between cities. Finally, Arnold experiences an identity crisis as well as conflicts with his community. In The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie, the author uses literary elements to emphasize that one’s racial and ethnic identity changes depending on the social surrounding.