Group B Post 4: Outsider Looking In-Sherman Alexie's Perspective: Kathleen Paxtor

Alexie writes his poems and short stories to recount parts of his life in his perspective. He uses themes of alcoholism, racism, colonization, despair, and resentment to capture the audience into feeling what he felt. For most of Alexie’s characters they “struggle to survive the constant battering of their minds, bodies, and spirits by white American society and their own self-hatred and sense of powerlessness” (Casey). For example in the poem On the Amtrak from Boston to New York he writes with what could be considered resentment. This poem is about the overwhelming colonization of American culture overriding Native Americans and their culture. The protagonist of this poem resents the lady for bringing up the history of something that was part of his history first; she was ignorant to the history beyond what she was taught. He call this “her country’s history” not “his” or “our”. He feels the need to be quite and keep his thoughts to himself, he views the ‘white American society’ as his ‘enemy’. He writes: “while I, as all Indians have done since this war began, made plans for what I would do and say the next time somebody from the enemy thought I was one of their own;” in this he clearly separates himself from the other, the enemy vs. him (Alexie).

Sherman Alexie in his writing uses his ‘outsider’ perspective to make the reader interact with his identity. Alexie is a Native American that was born and raised in a reservation in Spokane. Alexie continuously writes himself into his characters and uses themes that have affected him his whole life; “he is roused to consciousness about his own entrapment within clichés and culturally constructed ways of reacting” (Garic). The influence his youth had on him is seen in all of his writing, he uses themes of despair, racism, and lost identity to show what it is like to be a “part time Indian” in world that is socially constricted.

By seeing things through Alexie’s eyes we can try to understand his world. Alexi writes to “understand the world and to make fun of the world (Garic). In his short story Indian Education he writes about his personal experiences at school. Victor (the main protagonist) describes his education through specific episodes of his life that really stayed with him. Much like Alexie, Victor learned lessons that didn’t necessarily come from attending school and books but from experiences and life lessons. He uses specific experiences of others and compared them to his perspective. For example, in 8^th grade Victor could hear “the white girls’ forced vomiting” and asked them to “give [him their] lunch if they were just going to throw it up”. In the end, Victor concludes with “there is more than one way to starve”(Alexie).  By using an eating disorder as a metaphor Alexie is able to show that starvation goes beyond just food; “other forms of starvation are not explicitly tied to food, as those on the reservation are starving for a real education, for dignity, and for a better quality of life” (Battaglia). While these two girls were throwing away their bodily nutrition, Victor (Alexie) saw it as throwing up opportunities. This correlates with his past because Alexie chose to go to a public school for education he had more opportunities, his friends back home were not so lucky. The opportunities that were being thrown away were ones that were wanted by others who are starving for more.

Through Sherman Alexie, you can learn life lessons through different accounts and perspectives; lessons he learned through his youth, perspectives formed from a socially constrict universe that labeled him as an outsider looking in.

References:

Battaglia, Soheila. Theme of the Short Story “Indian Education. https://penandthepad.com/theme-short-story-indian-education-1669.html. 2017.

Casey,Rob. Poetry Foundation. Sherman Alexie. Poetryfoundation.org

Garic, Vanja. "Part-Time Identities and Full-Time Narration as an Absolution in Alexie's the Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian." Neohelicon: Acta Comparationis Litterarum Universarum, vol. 44, no. 1, 2017, pp. 189