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Research paper on creativity and mental illness
Research paper on creativity and mental illness
Research paper on creativity and mental illness
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Sherman Alexie is a very well known author and poet. The interview we watched was a unique glimpse into what inspires his writings, his past, and how he feels about his culture and heritage. Sherman Alexie briefly touched on illness during this interview about how it affects him from day to day and how it influences his writing. In his interview, he talks about how in manic states, several artists and poets create some of their best works during these episodes. Alexie was born with hydrocephalus which challenged him until about age seven. When he was in school, he found comfort in books proceeding to read everything available. I find this interesting as when he was young he could have gone down a completely different path and we wouldn’t
These two essays are about two dissimilar disabilities. Nancy Mairs and David Sedaris act as examples of how an author’s writing can change the tone and meaning of a narrative. Mairs message was educational and encouraging as she explained her life with MS and how society sees her. Sedaris use of experience and memories portrays his life with obsessive-compulsive disorder; what he calls “tics”. These two writers take similar topics and pitch them in ways so the reader can see the illustration behind them.
“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.
Sherman Alexie began his literary career writing poetry and short stories, being recognized for his examination of the Native American (Hunter 1). Written after reading media coverage of an actual execution in the state of Washington, Sherman Alexie’s poem Capital Punishment tells the story of an Indian man on death row waiting for his execution. The poem is told in the third person by the cook preparing the last meal as he recalls the many final meals he has prepared over the years. In addition to the Indian currently awaiting his death, the cook speaks of a black man who was electrocuted and lived to tell about it, only to be sent back to the chair an hour later to be killed again. He also recalls many of the meals he had prepared had been for dark-skinned men convicted of killing white people. The thought of racial discrimination in capital punishment seems to be the theme at first glance, but reading further indicates differently. The cook also ponders his own survival in the prison system as an inmate. Learning to cook and outlasting all the others before him, whether by age or fate, allowed him the opportunity to create food filled with love for the one that will die. After this final meal has been prepared by the cook for the condemned inmate to eat, fear and anticipation takes over his body. Just as proper temperature is needed for cooking, a proper amount of electricity is needed to operate the electric chair and this need creates a dimming and flickering effect in the prison reminding all those left behind of their possible fate:
Alexie Sherman, a boy under an Indian Reservation that suffers from bullying since the 1st grade, who would have a hard time being around white people and even Indian boys. US Government provided him glasses, accommodation, and alimentation. Alexie chose to use the title "Indian Education" in an effort to express his internalized feelings towards the Native American education system and the way he grew up. He uses short stories separated by the different grades from first grade to twelfth grade to give an idea of what his life was like. He seemed to have grown up in a world surrounded by racism, discrimination, and bullying. This leads on to why he chose not to use the term Native American. He used the term "Indian" to generate negative connotations
Sherman Alexie has made a name for himself as a prolific contemporary Native American writer, taking inspiration from his own past and experiences with modern Indian life. While there are many enduring themes throughout Alexie's writings: Native identity, modern reservation life, alcohol abuse etc. when it comes to his collection War Dances, the most apparent motif is fatherhood. Community and family are the heart of Native American cultures, with the father archetype holding great honor and expectation. However with alcohol abuse, poverty, and school drop rates running rampant through Native American reservations it is no surprise that more and more Native children are growing up in broken homes. In an alarming poll by the Kids Count Data Center, a national census, in 2011 out of 355,000 polled 53% live in single-parent homes. The lack of a leader, a strong male role model is a major factor in many of the abysmal statistics facing modern reservation children. The despotism of Native American culture has always been based on the deprivation of power, status, equality, and home. This presents a paucity of male dominance, many of these men feel helpless in a society where they have no real identity. They are forced to live in the idea they have no personal potential so it is understandable why the majority of Indian males may feel inadequate and unable to care for their families. Alexie himself struggled in a home with an alcoholic and neglectful father, and like many Native children he almost gave into a similar chain of abuse and alcoholism. This is what inspires him to write, to expose the corroding inner workings of the modern Native peoples brought on by centuries of autocracy. Oppression and the idea of fatherhood is a common ...
One way Sherman Alexie used humor was through Thomas’ stories. Since most of the residents of the reservation avoided Thomas, he was very lonely. Therefore, he spent most of his time observing everyone. Most of Thomas’ stories were based on what he saw. Thomas expanded his stories so they wouldn’t be plain information, but he also incorporated his side to the story which made it funny. In other words, half of the story was true and the other half was made up. An example of this was when
In this passage in Indian Killer by Sherman Alexie, Wilson enters an Indian bar interrogating them with questions about the Indian Killer. Native Americans and white people are in constant conflict because of brutal beatings and murders from both side of the equation. Wilson makes this worse by believing he is Indian and can fit in with the Native Americans, when in reality he has no one to fit in with at all. Sherman Alexie shows that by isolating and demonizing certain races in society, tensions will arise and a clear division will be created.
In Sherman Alexie’s “Superman and Me”, the author discusses that with passion and motivation, one can succeed without talent. He was born an Indian with “irregular paychecks, hope, fear and government surplus food.” (Alexie 1) What allowed him to become more than an just an Indian was determined by the fervor of his “love [for] books.” (Alexie 1) He learns to read and understand “the purpose of a paragraph” (Alexie 1) and discerns everything into paragraphs. His refusal to “fail” (Alexie 2) led him to become a writer that goes to schools, teaching them something “beyond Indians.” (Alexie 3) Furthermore, he was faced with discrimination and overcomes it. The “sullen and already defeated Indian kids” (Alexie 3) is the effect of people without
Sherman Alexi is a Native American short story author and in this story “This Is What It Means to Say Phoenix, Arizona,” his protagonist is portrayed in many of the stereotypical ways of being an Indian who lives on a reservation, some of these ways are is he is shown as being very spiritual by seeing the future and having special dreams as well as living up to the idea that most Indians are story tellers.
The book “An Unquiet Mind” by Dr. Kay Redfield Jamison outlines her journey in the psychological world while dealing with her illness, manic-depressive otherwise known as bipolar 1, as described in the DSM IV. She talks about her manic and depressive episodes that caused her to fly through her undergraduate and graduate studies at UCLA. She dealt with her illness, the death of a loved one, and her overwhelming stress levels she gains from becoming a tenure professor. I find the book to be riveting, in how it encases mental illness as a good and bad thing rather than an “illness”. The way that Dr. Jamison was able to find success and love in her turmoil filled life shows how there is hope for anyone that suffers from a mental illness. Even before I had read this book, I had always believed that people with a mental illness should work within the field. The themes that this book encomposes is the idea of love and “rotten luck”.
Sherman Alexie puts at each chapter a song from the band that they created, and these songs leave such a lasting emotion. The first song, reservation blues, when you read it makes you think about on a superficial level, that he is poor and unhappy. Taking a better look at it makes
In the first paragraph on page eighty-nine, the narrator says, “The disease has had sharpened my senses-not destroyed-not dulled them.”. The narrator clearly has admitted to having a disease that, to me, seems to have made him insane. It’s highly possible that he has a psychotic impairment such as Schizophrenia or other impairments. Admitting to having a
Where is hope? What is hope? Who can have hope? Trying to solve these questions, Sherman Alexie’s book, The Absolutely True Diary o f a Part-Time Indian investigates the journey of a budding 14 year-old cartoonist named Junior, or Arnold Spirit. Being a poor, Indian living on a reservation, that suffers from hydrocephalus, Junior does not get the liberty of having the easiest life. He is picked on by everybody other than his best friend Rowdy, “the toughest kid on the rez. [] Long and lean and strong like a snake” (Alexie, 15). Junior, determined to receive a better education and life despite the culture of failure he was born into, decides to leave the rez to attend an all-white school in the neighbouring town, the only Indian present there,
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.
For ages mental illness has been a problem across the world. It plagues everyone from kids to adults, poor to rich, and weak to strong. For many it is an unimaginable burden to carry, but for others they find light in being able to perceive illness through their writings. That’s what can be said about Nobel Peace Prize winner William Faulkner’s “A Rose for Emily” and feminist Charlotte Perkins Gillman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper.” Both were early 20th century writers. While both may be comparable based on their dark roots and bouts with mental illness, both can be contrasted just as easily based on their storytelling, writing styles, and character personalities.