Sherman Alexie's Superman And Me

2. The verb that Alexie repeats is “read.” He is emphasizing his determination to overcome the standards of the past. Through the repetitions, you come to learn he loved reading, and you learn of the mountains he climbed to stay with

“Superman and Me” involves the author, Sherman Alexie as an adolescent boy. Alexie lived in Washington on a Spokane Indian Reservation where he grew up with parents who were poor most of the time. Although, his parents “usually managed to find some minimum-wage job or another” (Alexie). The father of Alexie went to a Catholic school where he read whatever he came into sight with. Alexie looked up to his father; therefore, he wanted to be an avid reader just like his dad. Before he could even read, Alexie picked up many books. Although words look foreign to Alexie, he understood the purpose of a paragraph, and “realized that a paragraph was a fence that held words” (Alexie). Everything he looked at, he referred to it as a paragraph. Living a life inside of a paragraph, Alexie one day picked up a Superman comic book. This day became the day he learned how to read American literature. Looking at pictures in the comic book, Alexie assumes what he sees. This method eventually taught him the way of reading English. In the essay, Alexie states, “I was smart. I was arrogant. I was lucky. I read books late into the night, until I could barely keep my eyes open…” Not the typical student, Alexie would be told to be quiet in the classroom. Never did he expect being smarter would come with consequences. Is this the kind of American Dream Alexie wanted? Despite all the learning and being an outcast, the author became a writer, as well as

He says, “A little Indian boy teaches himself to read at an early age and advances quickly…if he’d been anything but an Indian boy living on a reservation he might have been called a prodigy. But he was an Indian boy living on the reservation and is simply an oddity.”(Alexie, par. 5). This particular quote is unique to pathos because it’s in third person point of view, whereas the rest of the essay is in first person point of view. Using this technique makes the audience feel sympathetic towards Alexie by comparing to non-Indians, who obviously have a notable advantage when it comes to status and privilege. He wants to be aware that it’s not typical for Native Americans to be as educated and successful as he became. It takes a lot of effort and dedication to be successful and treated as an equal in such a critical world. Closer to the end of the essay he says, “I read my books late into the night, until I could barely keep my eyes open. I read books at recess, then during lunch, and in the few minutes left after I had finished my classroom assignments.”(Alexie, par. 7) This further explains his effort as well as summing up his dedication and perseverance to changing the stereotype placed on Indians that live on reservations. His bond with books was so influential and he describes that bond successfully. Both quotes assist the reader in engaging with the story and convincing them on an emotional

Superman and Sherman Alexie both have unique qualities about them. The passage states that Sherman Alexie could read complicated books at a young age while other kids had a hard time. Superman

The final two paragraphs of Sherman Alexie's "Superman and Me" include the following three sentences: “I was trying to save my life,” “They [students] are trying to save their lives,” and “I am trying to save our lives,” all convey the meaning and purpose of the essay. The goal for his essay was to eliminate the Indian stereotype regarding education and provide hope to other Indians, informing them that they can be intelligent. All three sentences support these two ideas. For instance, the first sentence tells the audience that the author created a better life for himself and in order to do that, Alexie illustrates how reading and writing had such an effect on him. As an Indian himself, he claims that his race is faced with prejudice and is

Alexie compartmentalized his life in paragraphs which shows how important reading was even as a young child.. In the beginning of the essay Alexie writes that he grew up poor with “a combination of irregular paychecks, hope, fear and government surplus food”(324). His parents hopped from one minimum wage job to another so his life lacked stability. Once alexie realized the purpose of a paragraph he “began to think of everything in terms of paragraphs”(325). Alexie then goes into specifics on how catagorized every part of his life. He organized his life into paragraphs to bring a sense of stability. Making that connection shows that literature was essential in his development since before he could

Alexie wants to show how he is affected by racism in his time and how even though there have been laws passed not to discriminate against people. Whenever police brutality is a main issue in today's era, then that means that racism has not been resolved. Alexie is proving the issue and proving that it has permanently scarred people to where they can’t fall asleep knowing they will be okay in the morning. Whereas the people that are causing this to people of colored decent, sleep as if nothing had happened to them and they are not even realizing how much hurt they are causing other people.

Does The joy of reading and writing, superman and Me by Sherman Alexie had some hidden steps for people how starts to read or want to read more? Sherman wrote about his story with reading, how did he starts reading, his idol that influence him to read, the first thing he read, his classmate reading level, and his struggle as young Indian in reservation schools. The focusing of Sherman essay was on the young native American and how they should read more and to give them the support they need, so they can save their own lives, the same thing that happen with him, but if non-Indians read this essay they can also see Sherman as example and they could link Sherman life sorry and struggles in their personal life, no matter what ethnicity they are

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.

Sheman Alexie values education and knowledge. Education helps him to change his ordinary life to extraordinary and achieve his goals. In the essay “Superman and Me,” Sherman Alexie, reveal his journey learning how to read. He also says that he grew up in an Indian house in eastern Washington State, and his family was very poor in American society. Throughout the story, Alexie talks about how he strived to study and becoming successful. In the middle of the essay, he says that by doing so, “I was trying to save my life” (Alexie 50). He felt he was expected to fail, and being discriminated against by his peers and teachers. The other student wants Alexie to stay quiet when the non-Indian teacher asked for answers, for volunteers and for help.

There are some children, like the Indian boy in the short story that will simply not be given a chance to learn how to read and must adapt quickly to survive. Alexie took his fate into his own hands at an early age. Although the author never states the age of the boy, we are to imagine he is grade school age. Alexie states that the boy’s father had an extensive book collection from which he had taught himself how to read, but never mentions if the father had helped his son to learn to read. I imagine the father was too busy trying to support his family by working minimum wage jobs and finding work where he could find it. Needless to say, Alexie adapted well given his situation. These experiences give him accreditation with the reader,

The phrase that Alexie repeats is, “I was smart. I was arrogant. I was lucky. I was trying to save my life.” Alexie first introduces this point when he is talking about how he was growing up on the reservation and wanted to succeed in life and was trying to escape the depressing life on the Native American reservation. The constant pressure of the society setting ridiculous standards and typical expectations, the author is impacted throughout his childhood whether he should follow every other Indian child. Sherman Alexie knows he has the power to fulfill his dream, but struggles whether to use the power and come out of the emblematic way his people are looked at. “Where they are expected to fail in the non-Indian world. Those who failed were ceremonially accepted by other Indians and appropriately pitied by non-Indians.” The author was impacted to live either a pitied life just like every else, or to make a decision to stand up, and make a turnover the tradition of failure. Later in the story he goes to a Native American reservation and attempts to make a breakthrough with the students. At this point he repeats the same phrase, however, he changes it to, “I am smart. I am arrogant. I am lucky. I am trying to save our

Alexie goes on to demonstrate how his passion for reading influenced his childhood. He describes that, before he could even read, he would recognize what a paragraph was. Alexie explains, “I realized that a paragraph was a fence that held words” (Alexie 279). Then, Alexie further explains how he correlated other things in his life as paragraphs, such as the reservation in respect to the United States or the individual members of his family. He goes on to clarify how he found the Superman comic and viewed each panel, with text and illustrations, separately as its own paragraph. Alexie states that while reading the comic he says, “Aloud, I pretend to read the words” (Alexie 280). He knew these paragraphs together told a story and even though he could not read, he used the pictures to assume what the narrative was saying. With these details of his early beginnings of learning to read, the reader can further establish that his family’s economic status had no

While Alexie states his voice by using metaphor, he emphasizes the meaning of reading repeatedly in his essay. He stresses how he strives to read variety of books, and he records that,” I read the books my father brought home from the pawnshops and secondhand. I read the books I borrowed from the library. I read the backs of cereal boxes… I read magazines. I read anything that had words and paragraphs” (18). Alexie lists out all the material he has read with the same sentence structure, yet he does not conclude all these things in one sentence. He exemplifies his passion to reading, for he tries to save his life. Due to his parallel repetition, Alexie impresses the audience by these

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.