Language And Rhetorical Techniques In Sherman Alexie's Indian Education

Throughout the novel, Alexie addresses the underlying theme of poverty by highlighting the extreme class differences between the story 's two main settings: the Pacific Northwest towns of Wellpinit and Reardan. The contrasting locations of a severely impoverished native American reservation and the affluent white community surrounding it are key factors in the development of Arnold’s identity; he attempts to escape the toxic culture of depression, defeat, and hopelessness on the reservation by abandoning the poverty of his hometown and attending a white school which, upon first glance, seems full of optimism and opportunity. Arnold

As he grew up to become a writer, we see pain in the story he tells. “I loved those books, but I also knew that love had only one purpose. I was trying to save my life” (pg.18). Alexie wanted to be someone greater than what others expected him to be. People would put him down constantly, but he fought back just as much. He tried to save himself from the stereotypes of being just another dumb Indian. He had more determination to prove others wrong when it came too exceeding in reading to further excel in his daily life.

In his narrative "The Joy of Reading and Writing; Superman and Me”, Sherman Alexie aims to explore the terrible school conditions Indian students face on poor Indian reservations. Alexie taught himself to read at a young age and became a skilled reader and writer because of this. However, Alexie was widely feared amongst the other Indian kids; often he was asked not to answer when the non-Indian teachers asked a question. Refusing to fail, Alexie heightened his reading and writing abilities and became a well published author. Alexie later returned to Indian reservations and taught the students the joys of reading and writing; he attempts to remove the barriers to success that Indian children face.

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

In paragraph five and six, Alexie explores his school experience on the Indian reservation. He explains how he read Grapes of Wrath in kindergarten when others were struggling with simple kids books. Alexie also explained how kids would want “[him] to stay quiet when the non-Indian teacher asked for answers”. He even says that “a smart Indian is a dangerous person, widely feared”. Alexie uses these two paragraphs to show how school was on the Indian reservation and that he broke down the doors in his way.

Sherman Alexie is a writer.He has gone through many things in his life but all these things he went through were worth it. Alexie was an Indian child who went through rejection and rocky roads in his life.He was known as dangerous. He was known as a dangerous kid because “Indians aren’t smart.” Other Indians feel threatened

Sherman Alexie is a famous writer that writes about Native Americans. He himself being a Native he knows first hand what happens in the Reservations. Sherman Alexie promotes better treatment of Native Americans through his work Face, The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven, and “Face”

Gandhi once said “An eye for an eye only ends up making the whole world blind.” As a civil rights leader, Gandhi understood the true meaning of prejudice and even though he lived decades ago, his words remain true to this day. Starting with events hundreds of years ago, races have been segregated, even though the people here today never experienced those actual events the division between races is still prevalent. Sherman Alexie illustrates a four-century old conflict between whites and Native Americans through both sides. The theme “even after hundreds of years, grudges can be held through generations” is present in the novel Indian Killer by Sherman Alexie, as seen through 1990s Seattle and the conflict of John Smith's thoughts.

Alexie’s primary purpose of expressive writing can be seen throughout the short story. The story follows along from Alexie’s perspective as he gives his emotional response to key points of his life. The reader gets to feel the wonder as Alexie discovers an entire world opening up to him like a book as a young child when he learns to read. Alexie shows how this shaped his thinking. Everything now made sense in paragraphs. Alexie also gives insight into the pain of his childhood. The other Indian children did not appreciate that Alexie was outperforming expectations and would mistreat him. Alexis was gifted but instead of developing his gift he was ignored and left to fail with the rest. Alexie shows how this still affects him by talking about how speaking in third person fails to “dull the pain” of his childhood. At the end of the story Alexie gives a vivid picture of what he feels as he tries

Alexie states that he visits young Indian kids and tells them about his experiences and tries to relate to them because they are his people and apart of his

His portrayal of Native American experiences is praised by critics and scholars as realistic with regard to resistance of mainstream America. He asks three questions during the creation of a literary work, which include what it means to be an Indian, an Indian man, and live on an Indian reservation during this time. “Realism, in literature, is a manner and method of picturing life as it really is untouched by idealism or romanticism.” Specific details are required when using realism to interpret life objectively. To achieve reality with the use of realism accurate depiction is necessary to portray life as it currently is. When putting Alexie’s works under scrutiny, his writing has been impacted by social realism. He is trying to achieve social reality, through characters and themes. Alexie writes in contemporary times as to how Native Americans live, and tends to write about darker context instead of sacred. Even though Alexie’s novels are fiction, his characters are inspired by real people. He has been criticized by some as allowing the societal hidden truths of Native Americans to be revealed. “Alexie wants to unmask the alcoholic addiction and cruel traits of human character.” Because alcoholism is rampant on reservations which leads to premature deaths in Native Americans, and poverty is

Alexie uses metaphor to illustrate his experience of reading and writing. As an Indian, he reads a large number

In class we read a short story, Indian Education by Sherman Alexie. It talked about an Indian boy, Victor, and his schooling experience. It talked about how he was in a school that wasn’t getting him very far in life, so he bettered his education by going to a better school and coming out the valedictorian. He did not let himself live in his past and live in the shadows of what people thought Indians should be like, instead he proved them all wrong and made a future for himself. How does this relate to our assignment of writing a personal essay, well I relate to Victor in a sense of choosing to stay in a place that I would fit in or to go out into the world and better myself.

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.

Growing up as a Native American boy on a reservation, Sherman Alexie was not expected to succeed outside of his reservation home. The expectations for Native American children were not very high, but Alexie burst out of the stereotype and expectations put by white men. Young Native Americans were not expected to overcome their stereotypes and were forced to succumb to low levels of reading and writing “he was expected to fail in a non-Indian world” (Alexie 3), but Alexie was born with a passion for reading and writing, so much so that he taught himself to read at age three by simply looking at images in Marvel comics and piecing the words and pictures together. No young Native American had made it out of his reservation to become a successful writer like he did. This fabricates a clear ethos for Alexie, he is a perfect underdog in an imperfect world.