How Does Sherman Alexie Use Violence In Wellpinit

Sherman Alexie, in “Indian Education” tells his experiences in school on the reservation. Some of his teachers did not treat him very good and did not try to understand him. In his ninth grade year he collapsed. A teacher assumed that he had been drinking just because he was Native American. The teacher said, “What’s that boy been drinking? I know all about these Indian kids. They start drinking real young.” Sherman Alexie didn’t listen to the negatives in school. He persevered and became valedictorian of his school.

Moore was sent out of the Bronx to a mostly white private school. The school was decently funded giving Moore a better education that in a public school. He was completely removed from a toxic environment but this caused a conflict of identity within himself. The school was overwhelmingly a white population. In returning to his mother’s home, he struggled with the identity of a bright Caribbean child and an American-born black. He rebelled the prep school by getting himself in trouble with the law. Moore was caught tagging and aggressed with his friend Shea. He describes during their arrest “[he] didn’t know it at the time but once alone, we both started crying” (89). Moore understood at this moment that his actions were wrong and had consequences that could ultimately destroy his future. If it was not because of his future, it was the fear of disappointing his mother. However, Moore commits the crime again. He is influenced by the “’code of the street’ which dictates how they interpret and respond to conflict in their

This draws a connection to the erasure of Native American culture in history, they are seen as rare and different from the ordinary, and for some people their existence is completely forgotten or denied. His own comments of not belonging at a white school, because of his nationality and family history further show the division of race that he can see at Reardan. Junior’s cursing accentuates how frustrated and pathetic he feels, viewed as less than everyone at his school, and constantly rejected and isolated by his white peers. The negative, demeaning mindset of those white kids is that Native Americans do not deserve anything from white people, not their time, attention, care, or even a proficient education. According to Jens Manuel Krogstad at Pew Research Center, Native Americans have the second highest high school dropout rate- eleven percent. This is very high, especially when compared to the white or Asian dropout rates- five and three percent, respectively. Additionally, it says Native Americans have the second lowest percentage of bachelor’s degrees, only seventeen percent, compared to the two highest, white and Asian, at thirty three and fifty percent (Krogstad). Many Native Americans today are not allowed a chance at education because of poverty at reservations, and lousy, penniless schools. These issues are not thought about or spoken of often, because they are simply not

The Spokane Indians held these "rules" in such high regard that when Junior actually followed these rules and struck his bully in the face, the bully just stood in awe. In Junior 's society the logical thing to do would be to attack when you are highly insulted. But on the contrary, this new society did not follow his rules, nor did they have any of their own. By giving us, the readers, this list the author has strengthened his logos factor in this particular story.

Ethos, or argument by character is prevalent in this essay because of Sherman Alexie’s extreme credibility. Considering this essay is pieced together by different anecdotes, the author becomes more and more trustworthy as the story progresses. Sherman speaks of growing up on the Spokane Indian Reservation in eastern

Adjusting to another culture is a difficult concept, especially for children in their school classrooms. In Sherman Alexie’s, “Indian Education,” he discusses the different stages of a Native Americans childhood compared to his white counterparts. He is describing the schooling of a child, Victor, in an American Indian reservation, grade by grade. He uses a few different examples of satire and irony, in which could be viewed in completely different ways, expressing different feelings to the reader. Racism and bullying are both present throughout this essay between Indians and Americans. The Indian Americans have the stereotype of being unsuccessful and always being those that are left behind. Through Alexie’s negativity and humor in his

They were babies, really – a teenage cousin, a brother of 22, a childhood friend in his mid-20s all gone down in episodes of bravado played out in the streets.”(paragraph.6) Staples uses personal stories of conflict and pathos to illustrate violence and the emotional/physical price it has on people and their attitudes.

The story is a recount of bullying, told from the point of view of Davy Morne, who describes himself as one of the worst of the bullies. The victim is Herbie, the only indigenous kid at the school, who is brutally bullied for being noticeably different; because he has strong Indigenous features. He is described, “as black as a crow,” imagery which reinforces this difference, as does the language in words like “Boong”, “Nigger” and “Abo”, words which appear in the opening sentences, grabbing the reader’s shocked attention and compelling the reader to continue because how can anyone get away with such brazenly, racist language. Archie Weller excelled throughout the course of this story in his use of imagery: every sentence carried a vivid imagination, from the description of Herbie, his bullies or his torture and all this was cleverly done from the point of view of young Davy Morne.

No one is born hating another person because of the color of his skin, or his background, or his religion. People must learn to hate, and if they can learn to hate, they can be taught to love, for love comes more naturally to the human heart than its opposite.” Unfortunately Native Americans have deep roots with racism and oppression during the last 500 years. “In The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fist Fight in Heaven,” Sherman Alexie tries to show racism in many ways in multiple of his short stories. These stories, engage our history from a Native American viewpoint. Many Native Americans were brutally forced out of their homes and onto Reservations that lacked resources. Later, Indian children were taken from their families and placed into school that were designed to, “Kill the Indian, save the man.” In the book there are multiple short story that are pieces that form a larger puzzle that shows the struggles and their effects on Native Americans. Sherman Alexie shows the many sides of racism, unfair justice and extermination policies and how imagination is key for Native American survival.

At some point in time, everyone has thought that life is unfair. Whether it a toddler who didn’t get there way or a star athlete that was cut from the team, it’s happened to us all. In The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, Arnold Spirit Junior lives with that feeling everyday. This award winning novel by Sherman Alexie tells Arnold’s story and experiences from being raised on the Spokane Indian Reservation. He works his way through bullying, racial differences, and tragedies with wit, humor, and his drawings. Life isn’t easy for Arnold but it is far from uneventful. Alexie uses his characters, events, and setting to demonstrate that with enough self-determination, people can be successful despite disadvantages.

For example, they are allowed to slap their elders and make fun of little girls. Furthermore, in this society, violence is very ordinary, and its members are accustomed to it. On the other hand, we have the “Little Criminals” video

Purpose: Alexie highlights how he ultimately overcame the hardships suffered during his early years due to his Indian ethnicity and displays how Native Americans were, and continue, to suffer from discrimination.

The theme, people often make wrong accusations about people from a specific race, which often leads to self-pity, is introduced at the beginning of the story in many ways. In the beginning of the text, the Indian boy experiences bullying in elementary school. He was being abused and people through things at him, and they also took his glasses. But one day Sherman was brave enough to defend himself from the bully. Alexie illustrates, “ Then it was Friday morning recess and Frenchy Sijohn threw snowballs at me while the rest of the Indian boys tortured another top- yough- yaught- kid, another weakling. But Frenchy was confident enough to torment me all by himself, and most days I would have let him,” suggesting that the bullies are picking on him because he is a weakling and is easy to bring down. The theme is made more specific at this point because they are making wrong accusations about him. They don’t know what he is capable of and what he will grow up to be. Frenchy, the bully, was probably bullied in his life so he wants

At the beginning of Alexie’s life teachers and classmates demonstrate the racism. Sherman Alexie’s classmates are the first example of racism, with racist nicknames and bullying that start the chain of hardship in his life. Alexie narrates, “I was always falling down; my Indian name was Junior Falls Down. Sometimes it was Bloody Nose or Steal-His-Lunch” (Alexie 3). This quote is important because it conveys the racism that Alexie’s see in the early parts of his life with racist nicknames and the bullying that is brought. One way that this quote is racist is that Alexie refers to these nicknames as “Indian names”. It also depicts the bullying that Alexie endured with getting his lunch stolen, getting bloody noses, and falling down. Although this is a minor plot point to the story, this sets the reader up for the more and more detailed hardships that racism brings. Another example of racism in Sherman Alexie’s life is his teacher who bullies him for no reason. She makes him stay in for recess, hold books for fifteen minutes, and force him to cut his braids, and on top of all that she uses a negative connotation when describing

Education —an institution for success, opportunity, and progress — is itself steeped in racism. In Sherman Alexie’s short story “Indian Education” from his book The Longer Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven is set in two places, the Spokane Indian Reservation and a farm town nearby the reservation. The story is written in a list of formative events chronologize Victor’s youth by depicting the most potent moment from each year he is in school. Alexie addresses the issue of racism in education by examining examples of injustice and discrimination over twelve years in a boy’s life. Victor faces his initial injustice in first grade when he is bullied by bigger kids, but his understanding of injustice becomes much more complex in grades two through twelve as he experiences discrimination against his American Indian identity. Familial experiences of a Native woman, Alexie’s style and humor, and Victor’s awareness of discrimination from grade one to twelve all reveal the grim reality of growing up and being schooled on an American Indian reservation.