Alexie Sherman in “Smoke Signals” describes the way of living of Native Americans. He uses two characters in the movie as Native Americans Victor and Thomas. Thomas’s parents died in the accidental fire on Independence Day in 1976 in Coeur d’Alene, however, Arnold Joseph, Victor's father, saved Thomas from the fire. When Thomas was just blasted out of the window, Victor’s father miraculously caught Thomas before he landed on the ground. Thomas was a nerd who was smart, and he enjoyed telling stories to anyone.
"This is What it Means to Say Phoenix, Arizona" is a short story by Sherman Alexie that is about two Native American men, Victor and Thomas-Builds-the-Fire, who go on a journey to Phoenix, Arizona to retrieve the ashes of Victor's father. Victor and Thomas were once childhood friends, however, it is later revealed that they are no longer friends and have a struggling relationship with one another. As the story continues, Victor and Thomas make their way through the journey and encounter various challenges and obstacles that force them to reflect on various aspects of their past relationship with each other. The story ultimately ends with Victor and Thomas back at the reservation, saying their final goodbyes. Despite the fact that Victor and
How do you cope with the reality of day to day life? I would like to think I handle the reality of day to day life moderately well like everyone else. However, I began to question myself once again as I read Ambrose Bierce’s “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge.” This story, with its unexpected ending, had me rereading it several times to pull out key details that led me down the wrong path the first time.
Years of being mistreated and living in poverty from generations to generations, engraves the harsh memories into the Indians from the early ages of childhood. Alexie provides the reader with brutal memories that Wright and Sherman, record company agents, have of the harming of the Indians: “Wright looked at Coyote Springs. He saw their Indian faces. He saw the faces of millions of Indians, beaten, scarred by smallpox and frostbite, split open by bayonets and bullets. He looked at his own white hands and saw the blood stains there” (244).
Sherman Alexie wrote Reservation Blues. A novel that relates the struggle of being a Native American trying to succeed in life, in and out of the Spokane Reservation. Thomas Builds-The-Fire, Junior Polatkin, and Victor Joseph are three Spokanes who form a blues band named Coyote Springs. The band begins to gain the support of other Indians and even two of their fans are white girls, Betty and Veronica. Soon they are invited to perform at bars outside the reservation.
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.
Once European men stepped foot onto what is now known as North America, the lives of the Native Americans were forever changed. The Indians suffered centuries of torment and ridicule from the settlers in America. Despite the reservations made for the Natives, there are still cultural issues occurring within America. In Sherman Alexie’s, The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven, the tragic lives of Native Americans in modern society are depicted in a collection of short stories taking place in the Spokane Reservation in Washington state. Throughout the collection, a prominent and reoccurring melancholic theme of racism against Native Americans and their struggle to cope with such behavior from their counterpart in this modern day and age is shown.
Gloria Bird VS Sherman Alexie Gloria Bird’s Turtle Lake and Sherman Alexie’s The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven” are two stories written by Native American authors. When reading these two stories, one would not make any type of connection between them. Both are unique in their own way, but if he or she looks a little closer the similarities and differences become clear. To begin, both of the stories are distinct in their own way.
“I’m a Mad Dog Biting Myself for Sympathy” by Louise Erdrich is a first-person point of view story, where the narrator talks about this incident of him stealing this stuffed toucan. Through the story, you can see many explains of him feeling the loss in his life, and him struggling with change. The narrator makes bad choice after bad choice; first, he steals a stuffed toucan from a store. Then proceeds to run with this large toucan, and steals a car, which he finds out that has a baby inside, then gets stuck in a ditch and leaves the car and baby behind, and then finally gets caught.
Alexie's repetition also evokes emotion from the reader. The reader immediately becomes interested in Alexie's life. When he uses the same phrase he used to relate to his life and talk about the Native American children, the reader feels
In the seventh paragraph, 98% of Alexie’s sentences started with the word “I”. This emphasized all that he had done, everything he did to become a writer. It showed how persistent he was and how he had refused to give up. In most of these sentences the “I” was followed by “read”. This shows the extent of how much reading he did; how committed he was to reading.
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.
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.
Reading Gilgamesh was important because it gives the reader insight and an understanding of what was important to the people who lived during the time that Gilgamesh was written. It also allows us to see how things have changed from what we are used to reading to what we could have been reading before. Repetition in a story can sometimes seem a little annoying to the reader. However, I think it could be a very important characteristic when reading certain material.
Sherman Alexie uses a combination of reality and fiction in order to show the reader what he thinks the lives of people on the Spokane Indian Reservation was like. In regards to what differentiates the fiction from the non-fiction of the stories you could look at present day Native American Reservations. Some reservations are still plagued with alcoholism, and poverty of the past. While the characters and stories are just vessels to deliver the message and show what Sherman Alexie portrayed the reservation live to be. The reaction and impact that this has on the reader is the same as the age-old use of story telling.
