Uncle Alexie's Autobiography

There are many adjectives to describe Sherman Alexie and the journey he had becoming an educated poet. Alexie had a new interpretation of writing after finding out his idol, Joy Hario, is lesbian, “Poetry wasn’t as simple as I thought” (Alexie). This quote demonstrates that one adjective to describe Alexie is open minded. Alexie is shocked to hear that Joy Hario is lesbian especially since he previously stated he wanted to marry her. He went back and re-read many of her poems in a new sense of voice and now he views her writing with a whole new perspective. Alexie is humbled when he reflects on his writing career, “ I was one of those arrogant guys who start out as pretty good writers to begin with, but think they’re a lot better than they

There are some children, like the Indian boy in the short story that will simply not be given a chance to learn how to read and must adapt quickly to survive. Alexie took his fate into his own hands at an early age. Although the author never states the age of the boy, we are to imagine he is grade school age. Alexie states that the boy’s father had an extensive book collection from which he had taught himself how to read, but never mentions if the father had helped his son to learn to read. I imagine the father was too busy trying to support his family by working minimum wage jobs and finding work where he could find it. Needless to say, Alexie adapted well given his situation. These experiences give him accreditation with the reader,

The author relates to a second important topic, by showing within the story, characters, experiences, places and problems that resemble his past. As stated on “The Short Story for Students” by Sara Constanstakis, the personages in Alexie’s short story are not real, but they are hinged upon

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

While Alexie states his voice by using metaphor, he emphasizes the meaning of reading repeatedly in his essay. He stresses how he strives to read variety of books, and he records that,” I read the books my father brought home from the pawnshops and secondhand. I read the books I borrowed from the library. I read the backs of cereal boxes… I read magazines. I read anything that had words and paragraphs” (18). Alexie lists out all the material he has read with the same sentence structure, yet he does not conclude all these things in one sentence. He exemplifies his passion to reading, for he tries to save his life. Due to his parallel repetition, Alexie impresses the audience by these

Syntax gives the readers an idea of Alexie when he was first learning to read. In the fourth paragraph, he explains on how he started reading. As he was analogizing the world in paragraphs he began reading that Superman comic. For him to understand the text he began piecing the pictures together into words. His use of simple sentences gives the reader a feel to be in his place. “Superman is breaking down the door,” he states that was what he was interpreting from the pictures and then pretended to say those words,” Superman is breaking down the door.” With this picture and these words he concludes that Superman is saying words and those words, “I am breaking down the door.” Alexie’s way of learning to read relates to other people. These readers could have used elements like

The Story “Uncle Rock” by Dagoberto Gilb is about a look inside the life of a young eleven year old boy named Erick who uses his actions to show his disapproval of the countless men that come in and out of his beautiful mother’s life. After watching numerous relationships fail, Eric finally accepts and adjusts to an unlikely suitor perfect for his mom.

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.

My reflections on the orginization of the novel ended with me loving how the book came together. Alex started off as a normal teenager that does normal teenage activities , but then in a blink of a eye his

Alexie wants to show how he is affected by racism in his time and how even though there have been laws passed not to discriminate against people. Whenever police brutality is a main issue in today's era, then that means that racism has not been resolved. Alexie is proving the issue and proving that it has permanently scarred people to where they can’t fall asleep knowing they will be okay in the morning. Whereas the people that are causing this to people of colored decent, sleep as if nothing had happened to them and they are not even realizing how much hurt they are causing other people.

Alexie does not hold hard and fast to any metrical pattern. Doing so would be to conform to a poetical tradition of the "enemy." Instead, Alexie's composition is mainly syllabic. Some lines, such as "into what she has been taught. I have learned," may be classified as iambic pentameter (the end of the line consisting of spondees rather than iambs); but the very next line that follows shows that Alexie has no attachment to such form: "little more about American history during my few days" is neither iambic nor pentameter; it has roughly nine and a half feet with several different foot types.

Alexie draws in the reader by first telling a short story about her father back in the 1970’s. Alexie then goes on in briefly telling the reader what prison was like for their father. Eventually moving on to how the father met the mother and the relationship they father and mother had. This is an interesting take on the way a child views their father and mother and how the father has craved freedom. The fluidity of this short piece is excellent, it is not choppy and it gives just enough detail without dragging the story out. It also helps that this piece is an easy read. One of the things that I enjoyed from the piece was the comparison to how Indians would live compared to different races mentioned in the piece. I though it gave the Victor the narrator some personality. Victor also does a lovely job on creating the images of what his parents and their relationship, as well as his love for his father. The analogy of Jimi Hendrix and freedom for the freedom was easy to pick up on, especially for when the father had bought himself a motorcycle and found the freedom he craved (something Jimi Hendrix heavily

Alexie was born with hydrocephalus (water on the brain). When he was 6 months old, he had an operation that could have made him mentally retarded. He was raised on the Spokane Indian Reservation in Wellpinit, Washington. He spent a lot of his time reading at the school library. At the age of 8, he went to Reardan High School, 32 miles from the reservation. He did well in highschool and then attended the Spokane's Jesuit Gonzaga University in 1985. There, he was pressured to do well and started to follow in the alcoholic footsteps

I believe that Alexie’s writing style does affect the novel because it helps express the narrator’s (Junior) emotions. Alexie likes to repeat word or phrases which help synthesize Junior’s feelings. Not only that he also capatializes words and uses teenage slang. This becomes relatable to readers for example, “And as I ran onto the court, somebody in the crowd threw a quarter at me. AND HIT ME IN THE FRICKING FOREHEAD!” (Alexie 145) Therefore, Alexie’s style is easy to understand and we can’t help but feel empathy in every situation Junior is in.