‘’The Joy of Reading and Writing: Superman and Me’’ is an autobiography by Sherman Alexie, a Native American writer, who explains his life as an Indian boy and how learning to read shaped his entire world. Alexie lived on an indian reservation, and was expected to remain uneducated like others surrounding him. In the text he states, “A smart Indian is a dangerous person, widely feared and ridiculed by Indians and non-Indians alike. I fought with my classmates on a daily basis. They wanted me to stay quiet when the non-Indian teacher asked for answers, for volunteers, for help. We were Indian children expected to be stupid.” This quote explains how Alexie was aware that Indian children were expected to not become intelligent and be able to read. …show more content…
He states, ‘’I had a brother and three sisters. We lived on a combination of irregular paychecks, hope, fear and government surplus food.’’ This quote gives the reader a feeling of sympathy, because it illustrates how the author did not have an easy life. This detail is also important, because many readers can relate to a similar lifestyle. Sherman Alexie also concludes that he inherited his father’s passion for books. He states, ‘’My father loved books, and since I loved my father with an aching devotion, I decided to love books as well.’’ This quote explains that his father’s love for books caused him to love books as well. Except that Alexie did not know how to read, but this did not stop him. He wanted to be able to read, and become smart. Alexie set this as a goal, and was determined to accomplish …show more content…
This passion of his inspired a unique understanding and visualization of how paragraphs work. Eventually, he started seeing the entire world around him in terms of paragraphs. During this time he also picked up a Superman comic book. This comic book was an important tool in his learning. Alexie quotes, ‘’Because he is breaking down the door, I assume he says, "I am breaking down the door." Once again, I pretend to read the words and say aloud, "I am breaking down the door" In this way, I learned to read.’’ This quote demonstrates Alexie’s overall method of learning how to read on his own. He became his own teacher. Despite living in poverty, Alexie continued on working toward reaching his dream goal. There was still another obstacle Sherman Alexie had to overcome. He writes, ‘’As Indian children, we were expected to fail in the non-Indian world. Those who failed were ceremonially accepted by other Indians and appropriately pitied by non-Indians.’’ This quote reinforces the idea that Sherman Alexie was not given any support. Mainly, because Indians were not expected to become intelligent. It was a struggle for Alexie to become smart in a system with low expectations. It was hard for him to become smart, and be accepted by
“I refused to fail. I was smart. I was arrogant. I was lucky.” As a kid Sherman Alexie grew up on a reservation for Indians. He was mostly expected to be stupid as every other Indian kid, but he wasn’t he was actually very smart. He taught himself how to read and write by using a comic book. This comic book was about Superman. He would use the pictures and the captions to put together what they were making out. So that’s how he learned to read and write.
Sherman Alexis a Spokane/Coeur d’Alene Indian who wrote “The Joy of Reading and Writing: Superman and me”. In the short story explains how he learned to read and write even with limited resources on the reservation where he grew up. He starts his story by using popular culture describing how he learned how to read using a comic book about “Superman”. He also explained why Indian children were never supposed to amount to anything in life and that they were supposed to be dumb among Non-Indians. He wanted to let other Indian students that reading is what saved his life. It opened up his mind and made him a better person today.
Living in hard conditions, can make the person understand the world better. Being disabled, can create from the person a novelist. Hearing another stories, can help the person to live satisfy. Learning history, can teach the person to be unjudged. Embodiment the author to his real experience in some of his stories, consider as the most tentacles talk that can touch reader's heart. Because he lived, heard, learned, embodied, and according to all of his written, Sherman Alexie classified as the most successful writer who his words represent the reality. The story “Flight Patterns,” which was written by Sherman Alexie was representing some perspectives from his own life, like being Native American, and person with disability. The story also was about the severe problems people in this world have with profiling. It doesn’t matter if you’re White, Black, Indian, Spanish, Muslim, Jewish, rich, or even poor everyone does it. The two character I would like to focus on in this story is called William and Fekadu.
Imagine growing up in a society where a person is restricted to learn because of his or her ethnicity? This experience would be awful and very emotional for one to go through. Sherman Alexie and Fredrick Douglas are examples of prodigies who grew up in a less fortunate community. Both men experienced complications in similar and different ways; these experiences shaped them into men who wanted equal education for all. To begin, one should understand the writers background. Sherman Alexie wrote about his life as a young Spokane Indian boy and the life he experienced (page 15). He wrote to encourage people to step outside their comfort zone and be herd throughout education. Similar to Alexie’s life experience, Fredrick
Alexie shows a strong difference between the treatment of Indian people versus the treatment of white people, and of Indian behavior in the non-Indian world versus in their own. A white kid reading classic English literature at the age of five was undeniably a "prodigy," whereas a change in skin tone would instead make that same kid an "oddity." Non-white excellence was taught to be viewed as volatile, as something incorrect. The use of this juxtaposition exemplifies and reveals the bias and racism faced by Alexie and Indian people everywhere by creating a stark and cruel contrast between perceptions of race. Indian kids were expected to stick to the background and only speak when spoken to. Those with some of the brightest, most curious minds answered in a single word at school but multiple paragraphs behind the comfort of closed doors, trained to save their energy and ideas for the privacy of home. The feistiest of the lot saw their sparks dulled when faced with a white adversary and those with the greatest potential were told that they had none. Their potential was confined to that six letter word, "Indian." This word had somehow become synonymous with failure, something which they had been taught was the only form of achievement they could ever reach. Acceptable and pitiable rejection from the
After reading “Superman and Me,” by Sherman Alexie, I was shown how the author learned to read, and how he used his love for reading to impact his life and the lives of others. Alexie grew up with his family on an Indian reservation, relying on irregular paychecks and government surplus food. Alexie learned to read, on his own, at the young age of three. His love for reading originated from his father’s passion for books, and reading whatever books he could get access to. Alexie’s reading level reached such a high level to where he was reading Grapes of Wrath in kindergarten. He knew he was smart, and he didn’t want to take on the stereotype that all Indians are stupid. Unlike the other Indian children in his class on the reservation, Alexie tried to become as educated as he could, despite being teased by the other kids. Alexie came to describe himself as smart, lucky, and arrogant. This attitude of who he was and what he was capable of allowed ...
In Sherman Alexie's “The Joy of Reading and Writing: Superman and Me” the focus is on his struggle growing up poor on the reservation. Many people would have assumed that he was a child prodigy because he taught himself to read at an early age through his hero Superman’s comic book. Reading was the escape from his life of fences on the reservation. Despite the expectations for the children by their tribal elders, he demonstrated his love of the learning process and used the opportunities of the schools to free himself from the reservation; this made him a dangerous Indian. He dealt with the bullies of the school who made sure every Indian child followed the creed o...
How White people assumed they were better than Indians and tried to bully a young boy under the US Reservation. Alexie was bullied by his classmates, teammates, and teachers since he was young because he was an Indian. Even though Alexie didn’t come from a good background, he found the right path and didn’t let his hands down. He had two ways to go to, either become a better, educated and strong person, either be like his brother Steven that was following a bad path, where Alexie chose to become a better and educated person. I believe that Alexie learned how to get stronger, and stand up for himself in the hard moments of his life by many struggles that he passed through. He overcame all his struggles and rose above them
In Malcolm X's "Learning to Read," he tells the story of how he taught himself to read from the inside of a prison and how that nurtured his future career as a political activist. In Sherman Alexie's "The joy of Reading and Writing: Superman and Me," he talks about how Indians are expected to fail in non-Indian society and he claims that
While both Zitkala Sa and Sherman Alexie were Native Americans, and take on a similar persona showcasing their native culture in their text, the two diverge in the situations that they face. Zitkala Sa’s writing takes on a more timid shade as she is incorporated into the “white” culture, whereas Alexie more boldly and willingly immerses himself into the culture of the white man. One must leave something behind in order to realize how important it actually is. Alexie grew up in the Indian culture but unlike Sa he willingly leaves. Alexie specifically showcases the changes in his life throughout the structure of his text through the idea of education.
In a world dominated by technology, reading novels has become dull. Instead of immersing into books, we choose to listen to Justin Bieber’s new songs and to scroll through Instagram posts. We have come to completely neglect the simple pleasures of flipping through pages and getting to finally finish a story. Sherman Alexie and Stephan King’s essays attempt to revive this interest in books that has long been lost. They remind us of the important role that reading plays in our daily lives. “The Joy of Reading and Writing: Superman and Me,” for instance, demonstrates how being literate saved the narrator from the oppressive nature of society. The author explains that even though he was capable of reading complex books at an astonishingly young
American Indian students make up less than one percent of college or higher education students, and less than one third of American Indian students are continuing education after high school. In his memoir essay The Joy of Reading and Writing: Superman and Me, Sherman Alexie recalls learning to read, growing up on a reservation where he was expected to fail, and working tirelessly to read more and become a writer. Sherman Alexie had to overcome stereotypes in order to be accepted as smart and become a writer, which shows that it is harder for people who are stereotyped to be successful because they have less opportunities.
Sherman Alexie illustrates through the short story, “The Joy of Reading and Writing: Superman and Me,” how he developed the same reading and writing skills taught in a classroom solely from a Superman comic book. Alexie’s situation was unique from not only non-Indians but Indians as well. Alexie’s family was not privileged, which was the case for most of the people who lived on the Indian reservation. They, Indians, had access to very limited resources which ceased any aspirations they had at being successful. Alexie, as a young Indian boy, was not supposed to be educated by the societal norms expressed of his era. However, Alexie refused to fall victim to a stereotypical uneducated Indian boy. As a product of an Indian reservation, Sherman Alexie informs his audience, mostly dedicated to Indian children that he did not fail simply because of the joy he had for reading and writing.
The purpose of this story was to help other Indian children that are in the same position he is at to save their lives with reading. Why with reading though? Because reading is a basic skill of knowledge that will lead your to more and more intelligence. He shares in the last paragraph of his short story that there are two different students. The ones that are already saving their lives by reading his stories and fleeing to him when he comes to the reservations and those that have already given up and are defeated in the last row in the back of the class room. Sherman Alexie effectively states clearly “I am trying to save our lives.” He uses pathos, logos, and ethos effectively to describe his difficult life in the Indian reservations and how he persevered and strikes the world as an intelligent boy. Alexie says. “A smart Indian is a dangerous person, widely feared and ridiculed by Indians and non-Indians alike. We were indian children who were expected to be stupid.” Even though Alexie became and incredibly smart, he never became an of those things. He was known as an idol, trying to save the lives of young Indian children in the
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 essay, it is evident that he faces many issues and is very frustrated growing up as an American Indian. Growing up, Alexie faces discrimination from white people, who he portrays as evil in every way, to show that his childhood was filled with anger, fear, and sorrow.