The Past is Just the Past
Within the stories “Superman and Me”, “Every Little Hurricane”, “Indian Education”, and “This is What it Means to Say Phoenix, Arizona”, which are short stories all written by Sherman Alexie, it expresses the lives of boys and men living on Indian reservations. A famous quote by Sherman Alexie states, “Don’t live up to your stereotypes.” This quote is shown through these four different short stories by the representation of the theme; any historic events from history or negative situations should not contradict a person’s current situational state, nor should it change a person’s attitude towards a certain situation. Stereotypes are historical situations, and Sherman Alexie states that a person should not live up to
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A great physical fight or ‘storm’ broke out after plenty of negative situations built up between the people living on the reservation, but that didn’t stop the reservation, as a whole, from continuing on from the fight, and they didn’t collapse. The reservation got together, acknowledged the deaths that had happened, so neither nor the deaths or arguments stopped the people on the reservation from getting along. In the story “Indian Education,” an excerpt having involved stereotypes visualizes the theme very well. “I walk down the aisle, valedictorian of this farm town high school, and my cap doesn 't fit because I 've grown my hair longer than it 's ever been. Later, I stand as the school-board chairman recites my awards, accomplishments, and scholarships. I try to remain stoic for the photographers as I look toward the future,” (Indian 110) Alexie writes. Alexie was an Indian, and expectations were very low towards him, although he didn’t let that stop him from continuing life. Alexie continued to be very successful, and even as that happened, he looked towards the future and didn’t let past, historic experiences modify his decisions. Through the stories “Every Little Hurricane” and “Indian Education,” historic events from history should not contradict a person 's current situational state is a conclusive theme for these
In The Joy of Reading and Writing: Superman and Me by Sherman Alexie, Alexie states “A smart Indian is a dangerous person, widely feared and ridiculed by Indians and non-Indians alike” (Alexie 364). I would have to disagree with this statement. He is making it sound like just because he is a minority that received somewhat of an education, he should be feared by others. I believe that anyone who is smart and forceful in a community is dangerous because they have the willpower to go to any lengths to uphold their beliefs. On the other hand, I also believe that just because you are smart, you don’t necessarily have to be feared.
This caused them to forget their unity in two ways. The first way is that it caused the Sioux to fight over the right way to go about the choice between moving on to the reservations, to fight back, or to run away all together. This split is best characterized between the three main leaders of the tribe: Red Cloud, Sitting Bull, and Crazy Horse. These leaders all had different beliefs about what to do, this would later become an argument between the people. “After the treaty he made with the Wasichus five years before (1868) he never fought again, and he was living with his band, the Red Faces, at the soldiers’ Town”(Neihardt, 48).
Native Americans in Canadian society are constantly fighting an uphill battle. After having their identity taken away in Residential Schools. The backlash of the Residential Schools haunts them today with Native American people struggling in today 's society. Native Americans make up five percent of the Canadian population, yet nearly a quarter of the murder victims. The haunting memories of Residential Schools haunt many Native Americans to this day.
Despite the negative stereotype of American Indians, the objections and disapproval of fellow Natives, and the criticism of others, Sherman Alexie went on to become a successful writer that has inspired many. Alexie overcame many obstacles that would have deterred him from his goal, but he was able to remain steadfast and continue on in his pursuit of writing. As a result, he has published many literary works that include several short stories, poems, and a variety of novels. He allows his culture to seep into his writing, and continues to inspire young American Indians who also desire the path of knowledge.
Brent Staples, in his literary essay “Just Walk On By”, uses a variety of rhetorical strategies. The devices he uses throughout his essay effectively engage the audience in a series of his own personal anecdotes and thoughts. He specifically shifts the reader 's perspective towards the unvoiced and the judged. Within the essay, Staples manipulates several rhetorical strategies, such as perspective and metaphor, in order to emphasize the damage stereotypes have caused against the mindsets and perceptions of society as a whole. Staples illustrates how the nature of stereotypes can affect how we perceive others around us in either an excessively admirable light or, in his and many other cases, as barbaric or antagonistic.
In the story the joy of reading Superman and me Sherman Alexie tells an emotional story of both hardship and success. He shares his struggles of being a poor Indian kid destined to fail, but he had a desire to be persevere he wanted to be more than the stereotypical uneducated Indian on a reservation and was determined to do so. He was inspired by his father to love books, and with the love for books came the ability to escape from the boundaries of the reservation and the dream to be more. Alexie shares how he taught his self to read with a superman comic book and with his witty metaphors how it shaped his life. I found Alexis story to be emotional, but yet very interesting.
Throughout American history, the population of the country has become more and more diverse, and with this growth in diversity comes the growth of the diversity of cultures in this society. However, cultural appropriation has become a problem as the American society became more and more diverse throughout the course of the years. Cultural appropriation is the theft of one culture’s intellectual property or key beliefs, generally by a larger culture, and then this larger culture using what is taken from a minority culture incorrectly or inappropriately. Cultural appropriation perpetuates many of the stereotypes found within American society, and it also is a main contributor to the misinterpretations of minority cultures within the country.
More conflict arose because the government didn’t stop coal miners from entering and mining on the sacred and sustainable lands of the indians, disregarding the treaty. Although the government attempted to buy the lands, the Sioux were reluctant in giving sacred lands to greedy miners moving westward. Rather than keeping peace as the treaties were intended to, they caused more conflict amongst the settlers and
In his book the Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, Sherman Alexie portrays a teenage boy, Arnold Spirit (junior) living in white man’s world, and he must struggle to overcome racism and stereotypes if he must achieve his dreams. In the book, Junior faces a myriad of misfortunes at his former school in ‘the rez’ (reservation), which occurs as he struggles to escape from racial and stereotypical expectations about Indians. For Junior he must weigh between accepting what is expected of him as an Indian or fight against those forces and proof his peers and teachers wrong. Therefore, from the time Junior is in school at reservation up to the time he decides to attend a neighboring school in Rearden, we see a teenager who is facing tough consequences for attempting to go against the racial stereotypes.
When his second grade teacher calls him “indian, indian, indian,” Victor says, “Yes, I am. I am Indian. Indian, I am” (Alexei 173). The conversation portrays parallelism in that Victor’s repetition echoes the way his teacher repeats “Indian”. Alexei’s use of a capitalization change portrays Victor’s desire to identify as Indian while the white community tries to assimilate him.
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.
The Native Americans and white people never got along ever since the time the first pilgrims arrived. After losing many wars to the white men Native Americans soon became controlled by these white men to the point where their children were forced into boarding schools. The government stated that the schools would civilize the native children and fix what they called the indian problem. They saw Native Americans as if they weren’t also part of the human race, as if they were less. That wasn’t the worse part either in the boarding schools where the native american children attended they were mistreated and malnourished.
Superman and Me - A Rhetorical Precis In “Superman and Me” (1998), an essay written for the Los Angeles Times, Sherman Alexie Jr. explains how the stereotype that Indian children are less intelligent than other children is not only incorrect, but harmful. Alexie provides examples of his own intelligence, having read “Grapes of Wrath in kindergarten” (5); and exhibits his personal experiences with the intelligence of other Indians (they “could tell complicated stories and jokes at the dinner table”) in contrast to how they acted around those who were not Indian (“They were monosyllabic”) demonstrating how Indians are “expected to fail” in a “non-Indian” society (6). Alexie draws contrasts between the stereotype and the truth in order to clearly
Writer Sherman Alexie has a knack of intertwining his own problematic biographical experience with his unique stories and no more than “The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven” demonstrates that. Alexie laced a story about an Indian man living in Spokane who reflects back on his struggles in life from a previous relationship, alcoholism, racism and even the isolation he’s dealt with by living off the reservation. Alexie has the ability to use symbolism throughout his tale by associating the title’s infamy of two different ethnic characters and interlinking it with the narrator experience between trying to fit into a more society apart from his own cultural background. However, within the words themselves, Alexie has created themes that surround despair around his character however he illuminates on resilience and alcoholism throughout this tale.
In Superman and Me by Sherman Alexie, Alexie’s father’s love for books grew to make his self-love books ending up in Alexie teaching himself how to read. Alexie describes the stereotypes and what is expected of Indian children and how Indian children were expected to basically have no knowledge Many lived up to those expectations inside the classroom but invalidated them on the outside. While other children were doing this, Alexie’s father was one of the few Indians on the reservation who went to Catholic School on purpose and was also an devoted reader. Alexie grew up around books. His father had a strong love for books as he bought them by the pound from pawn shops, goodwill and the salvation army.