Curpose Of Diction In Sherman Alexe's Superman And Me

uperman and Me
Adelaida Urrea

Sherman Alexie, in his essay, “Superman and Me”, recounts how he learned to read even though he lived in poor family inside a community where education was disparaged. Alexi’s purpose is to describe how kids are expected to fail academically since education is not cared for in Native American communities, and ignite change in the ways Native American children are educated. He adopts an inspirational tone in order to encourage other Native Americans to follow his example and educators to help solve this problem.

Alexi projects an inspirational tone, through the use of diction to achieve his purpose. For instance, when Alexie introduces how he learned to read, he states: “The words themselves were mostly foreign, but I still remember the exact moment when I first understood, with a sudden clarity, the purpose of a paragraph.” In making this comment, Alexie magnifies the impact reading would have for his future. Alexie’s point in writing this sentence, is to demonstrate that learning to read requires perseverance. However, persistence will be rewarded, with the knowledge provided by reading. By doing this the author is trying to say that today, there are unlimited resources for reading; therefore, educators have to take advantage of this opportunity to evoke passion for reading in their students, regardless their ethnicity. Basically, in this sentence Alexie introduces his subject: how he becomes who he is by learning to read as a Native American boy. In conclusion, this enlightens the purpose of the essay by encouraging Native Americans to read books in order to move forward from erroneous beliefs.

Through the use of diction, Alexi, reiterates an inspirational

He achieves his purpose by adopting an inspirational tone to embolden Native American children to follow his lead and change this