Tomson Highway Sherman Alexie Analysis

In Sherman Alexie’s short stories (and poems), there usually three central themes that the story rotates. In this paper, I will be exploring how he (Alexie) explores the themes losing culture, a cycle of regret, and using drugs (mainly alcohol) to escape. In Indian Education, the short story, Alexie seems to show that whenever young Victor tries to express himself through his culture, he is punished. Take the section “First Grade” for example. In first grade, Junior (the main character and narrator) says that “The little warrior in me roared to life that day..” and makes comparisons to traditional Native American warriors, such as describing the brusies on the other boy’s face as “war paint” or how Junior chants “it’s a good day to die”, which is phrase typically associated with Crazy Horse, who was a Native American chief.

Miss Stretchberry teaches him this literary devise through Edgar Allen Poe’s poem The Bells.

He used them to add emphasis to the words he 's saying and really make the reader think. I think this is particularly notable when he asks “And even if they had known it, what good would it have done them, since there was no place within miles of them were any other sort was to had?” and exclaims about people being made into lard. I think this stands out to me because of other works I’ve read that use the same technique. Additionally, this excerpt definitely got me thinking about the food we eat today. These people had no idea they were eating disgusting, rancid, altered meat, so I wonder is this happening today without the people’s knowledge?

In this passage Malcolm X addressed the narrating “I” to address the audience of the autobiography, and he explains to them why he put forward the “sordid” details of his younger years as well as tells the read why he made the decision to spend so much time writing a book at all. This passage shows the reader the important themes that Malcolm X aims to put forward in the book, and that is the theme of race and racism in addition to the theme of religion. The theme of race is present when he says, “I had sunk to the very bottom of American white man’s society.” This quote tells the reader that Malcolm X has aimed, and still aims, to show how American society puts the white man at power, and the African-American man below him. Then the theme

Thomas Lux’s “The Voice You Hear When You Read Silently” is a poem that speaks about the inner voices that you hear when you are reading. Then it will speak about the words that you remember can trace back memories. Throughout this poem, Lux demonstrates tone, figure of speech, theme, structure, and imagery to make his audience to impart in the message that your own voice truest. When Lux wrote this poem, he wanted his audience to understand the tone of voice that he was speaking with.

Calling Mexico” Response to Literature Ray Bradbury is known for his provocative and moving work, and his short story “Calling Mexico” is no exception. In this story, an ailing, elderly man in Illinois attempts to capture the nostalgic sights and sounds of Mexico City via a telephone call. Here the reader is captivated in empathy for the man and his failing senses and we really get a feel for the Colonel's true character. We also see that some people act differently than others while a close one is facing death.

Even in the corrupted area that is the South in the 1930s, they still do their best to love everybody and do what’s good, not for themselves, but for

Classic American works of literature have recurring themes involving tales of friendship, loneliness, and appreciation of life. Novels to teach the coming generations, they clearly depict the struggles and dreams every average family or folk by providing simple plots every reader can relatively relate to. John Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men is no exception to the rule. Following the daily lives of two friends, the cliche of internal struggle is prevalent throughout the duration of the novel. From the depictions of actions and attributes of the characters, themes, and plot, audiences can obviously pluck out the cliche.

“Theme for English B” is a poem by Langston Hughes in which a black student who studies in a predominantly white university is given an assignment. The assignment is to write a page that comes from the heart, because that way, according to his instructor, it will be true. In the poem the student constantly tries to tell his instructor through his paper that even though he is black, he does the same things as white people. The student goes to great lengths to try and get his point across to his instructor, which is that even though his skin is black, he is not different than other students in his class.

This radical patriotism being preached here seems unacceptable to the 21st century human. On reading the Wikipedia article on “The Charge of the Light Brigade”, I found that 40 years later a poem called “The Last of the Light Brigade” was written which focussed on the hardships faced by the war veterans and the pathetic response of the British public when asked to aid the veterans. This poem was authored by Rudyard Kipling, an author familiar to all of us because of his immensely popular “Jungle Book”. He was Indian born, this Indian connect coupled with the fact that this poem reflected a situation that it is still a huge predicament, even today piqued my curiosity and I explored this poem further. This is the story of how I picked this piece of poetry as my

I’m Helen Hunt Jackson, but I was born Helen Maria Fiske. I was a well known author, novelist, and journalist in the late 1800s. I was a prolific writer and I am remembered primarily for my efforts on behalf of the American Indians. I devoted my life to remedying the injustices suffered by Native Americans. I attended the Ipswich Female Seminary, where I befriended Emily Dickinson and ever since we helped each other in writing and progressing in our poetry.

This project led to the author’s first published poem and lead to an immersion into poetry of all types. Upon further examination of the chapter we find that our author acts as a tutor for GED classes at the prison, impacting other inmates in her occupational capacity. The author details her encounter with a Russian inmate with limited English capabilities, whom she helped. Lastly, the author details tattoo’s in the Fluvanna prison system, and the crude methods that area employed to get the end

Dorothy L Sayers once said, ‘Those who prefer their English sloppy have only themselves to thank if the advertisement writer uses his mastery of the vocabulary and syntax to mislead their weak minds.” Syntax is a set of rules in a language that dictates how words from different parts of speech are put together in order to convey a complete thought. In Superman and Me by Sherman Alexie, combines simple sentences and enumeration in order to initiate understanding of his difficult Native up bringing with his audience. In the essay, Superman and Me by Sherman Alexie, syntax is utilized to reflect his purpose by communicating meaning and keeping the reader's attention throughout his descriptions of struggle that he endured while learning to read.

In the excerpt from “the Unauthorized Autobiography of me”, Sherman Alexie conveys to the reader his nostalgia for when he was a child. He also attempts to emphasize that since that time, his life has become more lonely, and that he doesn't have “protection against the cold”. Alexie accomplishes this goal by discussing a happy moment presumably from his childhood, and he then uses an extended metaphor to explain how he now no longer has these types of connections with the people around him. The first line of the excerpt, “ my cousins are good warriors” is a reference to the fact that when he was growing up on the reservation, western movies taught him that Native Americans were fierce warriors. Although this sentence does not tie in with much of the rest of this excerpt, it is important to other parts of the work discussing conceptions of Native Americans.

“Because My Father Always Said He Was the Only Indian Who Saw Jimi Hendrix Play the ‘Star-Spangled Banner’ at Woodstock”: Individual Warfare As Greek philosopher Plato once said, “Only the dead have seen the end of the war.” In Sherman Alexie’s “Because My Father Always Said He Was the Only Indian Who Saw Jimi Hendrix Play the ‘Star- Spangled Banner’ at Woodstock,” Victor’s father can align directly with this belief.