Superman And Me By Sherman Alexie

With Alexie knowing that learning and knowing how to read was a skill that everyone needed, he encouraged many other young Indians to learn how to. He would tell them, “I am smart. I am arrogant. I am lucky.” He was trying to save their lives. He wanted to teach them how to read because they are smart, they are arrogant, and they are lucky. In the story it says, “ They look at me with bright eyes and arrogant wonder.” They looked up to his, and believed him. Then, there were those few that were defeated from the start that would sit in the back of the classroom and would ignore

Sherman Alexie, the author of “The Joy of Reading and Writing: Superman and me,” begins by informing the audience of the trials and hardships that he faced as an Indian boy on the Spokane reservation. Then Alexie shares with the audience, a story, about the first time he read which impacts the audience because it is personal and concise, which emotionally connects the audience and builds a foundation of understanding. The foundation built by the story, allows for Alexie to elaborate on the passion he had for reading and later reminds the audience that he lived on a reservation where the children were not expected to succeed, and even though he did and we find out children now have an “arrogant wonder,” (Page, 14) there are still the few that may adhere to old expectations. Alexie uses Pathos, Ethos, and Logos to assist in conveying this message.

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

In his short story, "The Joy of Reading and Writing: Superman and Me",novelist Sherman Alexies reflects how education saved his life. He recounts how reading was a significant part of his life growing up in the Spokane Indian Reservation in eastern Washington state, influenced by his father's passion for reading books. The purpose of this story is to inspire its audience to defy stereotypes and exceed the seemingly low expectations of others by educating themselves. Through his use of pathos, ethos, and metaphor, Alexie appeals to similar feelings and experiences in his Native American readers and persuades them to empower themselves through education.

King claims that reading extensively makes for a better writer as through good and bad literature allows a writer to reflect on his own writing and improve his style. Yet Alexie rather is empowered quite differently by the knowledge he gains in reading literature. Alexie went against the stereotype for Indians at the time which still affects not only Indians but non-Indians as well. He is trying to make a point as to why he did not fail in the non-Indian world and that he deserved to succeed given how desperate he felt at times yet he did not accept fate given that he was considered “dangerous” (17). In doing so he works to change and save the lives of Indian kids but is unable to do so for all of them. He says, “They stare out the window. They refuse and resist. ‘Books,’ I say to them. ‘Books,’ I say” (18). Though the idea of empowerment may not be the same, it came from one source – books. This is how “a novel like The Grapes of Wrath may fill a new writer with feelings to…work harder and aim higher” (222), according to King, while a young Alexie “read “Grapes of Wrath” in kindergarten when other children are struggling through “Dick and Jane”” (17). Furthermore, Alexie stood out in a society which rather put him down for his race, which is not an equal comparison to how King stands out for social norms where he would rather read a novel “at meals” which “is considered

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.

Alexie emphasizes that because of the white man's attitude some Indians do not try in school. They have been taught to resist the white mans's education. Now he returns to the schools

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 “The Joy of Reading and Writing : Superman and Me” published in the Los Angeles Times, Sherman Alexie brings attention to the cultural divide between Indians and non - Indians, specifically in the area of education. Alexie uses himself as the example in the article, a “Spokane Indian boy” who lives on the reservation. Alexie chose to mimic his father's love for books, because of that he taught himself to read at a very young age. He learned to read by looking at the pictures in a Superman comic book. After teaching himself he “advances quickly”, unlike other kids he is able to read “Grapes of Wrath in kindergarten”. If he hadn’t been an Indian boy he may have been called a “prodigy” but he was so instead he was an “oddity”. At this point in the article Alexie brings us out of his past as a child and into his present as an educated Indian man. Much to his surprise he has become a writer. He says, “I visit schools and teach creative writing to Indian kids”. Alexie talks about how Indian children have lower

Alexie was different from his fellow peers because he learned to read books at a young age including the challenging novel, The Grapes of Wrath. Alexie values education and knowledge and does not let anyone get in the way of him and his books. Being an oddity since he is an Indian child and a minority, Alexie may have some hostilities built up against the people who doubted his intelligence such as the non-Indian teachers and other parties who patronized him.

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.

Sherman Alexie recalls his childhood memory of learning to read, and his teaching experience in “The Joy of Reading and Writing: Superman and Me”. He devotes his interest to reading. By this way, he breaks the stereotype that Indian boys are expected to be stupid and dumb, and later on he becomes a successful writer because of his endeavor to read. Alexie vividly narrates his younger life by using metaphor and repetition with a confident tone, in order to strengthen his description of his reading talent, his influence to the other Indian boys and how he struggles in poverty to change his life.

The next idea that Sherman Alexie answers is what is like to be an Indian Man in the short story “An Indian Education” it seems as if to be an Indian man is to be caught between two worlds and sometimes picking one over the other. For example, the passage on page 176 states the following: “But on the day I leaned through the basement window of the HUD house and kissed the white girl, I felt the good-byes I was saying to my entire tribe” (176). For the narrator of that section he felt like had to give up the Indian part of him because of kissing the white. He felt he disappointed his people and they would never for give him for it. He felt as if his tribe would see him as ‘sell out’. There is also a question of did he view himself the same way. The narrator continues state “After that, no one spoke to me for another five hundred years” (177). Sherman Alexie allow the narrator to end that section with a Hyperbole for added meaning. While we know the narrator was not alive for five hundred years, but it could have felt that way for him. He could have thought that everyone hated him or saw him in a negative light. “Amusement” has great examples of how the main character thinks what is like to be an Indian Man.

There has been a long pattern of mistreatment of people of color over the course of American History, including the forced relocation of the majority of the Native American population onto reserves. In Superman and Me, Native American author Sherman Alexie writes about his experiences growing up on an Indian Reservation in Washington, and how breaking away from the norms of his culture affected his life. The people around him celebrated their culture, but hid it in the presence of white people, actions presumably formed from years of discrimination to avoid drawing attention to themselves. However, instead of remaining quiet and reserved in the presence of white people, Alexie chose to be different. He states that they were “Indian children who were expected to be stupid”, and “expected to fail in the non-Indian world”, but Alexie refused to be constrained by these expectations (Alexie 17). He was an avid reader, with a purpose. Alexie says, “I was trying to save my life” (18). For him, a life on an Indian Reservation was one where he would never be able to reach his full potential. He had to get out to save

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.