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Indian Education Sherman Alexie Analysis

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Sherman Alexie writes the story “Indian Education” using a deadpan tone to build and connect the years of the narrator 's life together in an ironic way. Alexie is able to utilize irony through the use of separate, short sections within the story. The rapid presentation of events, simple thoughts, and poetic points made within the story enable the reader to make quick connections about the narrator’s life to draw more complex realizations. The art that Alexie uses to write this very short story is poetic in nature through the meaning and structure of his writing. By the fact that the reader can draw deeper conclusions about the narrator 's life from Alexie’s writing is evident that his writing is poetic. The structure of the story graphs out the narrator 's life in chronological order. Each year is unique by presenting new information about the narrator 's life along with simple conclusions within that year. Throughout the years, a reader can draw …show more content…

Being a writer of many different styles, Sherman Alexie started off as a poet before writing novels and short stories. His poetic manner continues in the story “Indian Education”. He has a wide array of dry statements mixed with metaphors and statements that are not meant to be taken literally. The trend for each years is that he starts off dry and literal and ends poetic and metaphorical. His description of his interactions with the “white girl” in seventh grade is a great example. He starts off by saying “I leaned through the basement window of the HUD house and kissed the white girl.”(Alexie, 349) which is very dry and litteral. He then ends the seventh grade section with the statement “no one spoke to me for another five hundred years.”(Alexie, 349) The end of the grade becomes very poetic. This pattern continues through the story where he makes literal statements followed up with a metaphorical comparison or an intense, poetic exaggeration. It is clear that the short story “Indian Education” has strong ties with

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