Sherman Alexie Indian Education

Sherman Alexie’s Indian Education focuses his attention on three main points and uses character, setting, and ambiguity to write his story. Alexie focuses on one main character, himself, while also focusing on the setting of his school off the reservation. He uses ambiguity to make his story complex and gives a broad spectrum of meaning for his words, which flows perfectly throughout his story. The story showcases each grade of Alexie’s school life and explains the challenges he had to face through life while attending school, which was not common where he was from.

When talking about character, Sherman Alexie is very indirect. He does not plainly state how his character is, but rather explains him throughout the story through his actions,

thoughts, and words. In the Author’s Craft article, the writer explains why the use of characterization is important. It states that in order to interest the reader, the characters need to seem real. It also explains that to achieve this, the author needs to give details about the characters that are “individual and particular”. The article also says that good characterization gives readers a “strong sense of characters' personalities and complexities”, and this is what makes a character alive and believable, and keeps the reader interested. Sherman Alexie’s Indian Education is a very character-driven. He talks about himself throughout the whole story and his life at school off the reservation. In Writer’s Digest article about the character, it talks about a character-driven novel. The article then focuses on nine points to make a good character-driven novel. Just like the Author’s Craft article about how character’s need to be interesting to the reader, these nine points go into making the character interesting, especially if it is going to be a character-driven novel rather than a plot-driven suspense novel. The article states that in order to have a good character-driven novel, the character needs to have a communication style that is unique and interesting, and that makes the character stand out. The characters history should be relatable to how the character is, such as their personality. The character’s mother. Father, siblings, and any valued people should come into the character’s history. This will also help shape the story later on. Much like the communication style, the appearance of the character should unique and personal to the character. Relationships that the character has really given the reader a good look at how the character is, such as if they’re outgoing or a little shy, and also how the character’s personality is. The character’s ambition and thoughts go hand in hand. It is important in a novel or story to state what the character’s ambition is as well as what their thoughts are to get some more insight into the character. The character defect of the character is very important to the character’s personality because this is anything that really stands out about them, such as if they do something that really annoys people.
Most stories character portrays, in a way, how the author is as a person.

In Alexie’s story case, the character is himself. Alexie does a very good job about hitting all the main nine points (Writer’s Digest) a character should have in a story and keeps his story interesting through

characterization.
Sherman Alexie focuses his story, Indian Education, around one main place, his school. Although he does talk about his reservation, or his home, a few times throughout his story. Much like character, setting plays a big role in stories, being that it sets the foundation for everything in that story and gives a great deal of explanation for gaps in the story. In the Writer’s Digest article, Discover the Basic Element of Setting In a Story, it lists the ten main things a setting should portray. The setting should be one main place that the story revolves around, which in this case, is Alexie’s school. The time of year and time of day play a big role in setting. Knowing this information will fill in gaps that the author may not portray. Such as if the author said the character was sleeping, you would assume that it was night time. Elapsed time is often not talked about in the story. It is often a hidden element that the author does not portray. An example would be that if the character was a woman who just found out she was pregnant and then later in the story it mentions that her baby was three months old, you would make the thought that twelve months had gone by in the story. The geography and atmosphere of the story explain how each character is and why they do what they do. This could be that is the character is climbing a mountain, you can make the assumption that the character lives in a rocky mountain area. Historical context and ancestral context are very important to every story. This sets the foundation for the main setting and also gives an explanation for the whole story. This will also link to the plot, characters, and every action in between.
As it says in the article by Universal Class, the author should not describe the story in a play-by-play way. The author should word it in a way that is interesting to the reader, just like anything else in a story. An example that the article gives is that “she fixed her hair without noticing the large vase of red roses sitting on her nightstand”. It states that this is what is valuable to the scene as well as the story. Leaving out details that aren’t important will give the reader a chance to fill in the blanks, which will engage the reader even more. When describing geography or population, the author should not give statistics or facts that will present it in a boring way, the author should use details so that the reader will feel like they are experiencing the same thing with the characters. Sherman Alexie titles his paragraphs by what grade he is in, so then rather saying “In school…” he just puts “First Grade” at the top of each paragraph and then starts talking about that grade. This grade is set in the reader’s mind while he/she is reading the paragraph and it makes the reader more understanding about Alexie’s character and fills in gaps for details that he does not give.
Ambiguity is a tool that Alexie uses throughout his story to keep it interesting. It gets the reader thinking about what he is really trying to say and makes the reader focus on the story more. In his paragraph titled “Fifth Grade”, he portrays two sides of Indians. He describes what is beautiful to him in his school life, and then he describes what is beautiful to the typical Indian that lives on the reservation. The literal definition of ambiguity is “the quality of being open to more than one interpretation”, and Alexie expresses this in many ways with his text. In Encyclopedia Britannica’s article Literature: Ambiguity, it states that ambiguity became very popular in English and American poetry and that it was a favorite critical sport. Ambiguities “subtle and complex” effects have a big impact on the story, but it can be difficult to deal with at the time. It does make the story a little more difficult to read and can be frustrating if the reader does not understand what ambiguity is. As is says on Language Ambiguity, using ambiguity in literature can often make the reader have misunderstandings of what the story is really trying to say. This can lead to how the reader feels towards or the story or how they view the story. “Ambiguity is a poetic vehicle. It is human nature to try to find meaning in an exchange. A text is given to us and in return, we give our interpretation. Our own associations give an understanding of what is presented to us.”
Some examples of ambiguity that Alexie uses are in the paragraph “Seventh Grade” and he says “But I was saying good-bye to my tribe, to all the Indian girls and women I 46 might have loved, to all the Indian men who might have called my cousin, even brother.” In “Eighth Grade”, Alexie says he could hear the “...whispers of anorexia and bulimia.”, but we all know that these things are not whispers, but actions. He also says he “...sat back and watched the girls grow skinny from self-pity.” The girls felt bad for themselves and this made them grow skinny because they were throwing up on purpose. In “Tenth Grade” Alexie says “Believe me, everything looks like a noose if you stare at it long enough.” He was talking about a guy that drove himself into a pine tree, but no one knew why. The man had a good job, a wife, and kids. But all the Indian kids knew that the man was tired of living on the reservation and being an “Indian”.
Sherman Alexie’s Indian Education is about his own life.

He does a great job at explaining the chain of events that went on with his life while he went to school off the reservation. He uses character, setting, and ambiguity to do so. The character that he focuses on is himself, and he portrays himself through select dialogue to give his reader a good sense of who he is as a person. He stands out more than any other character that he tells the story because he decided to change his life around and attend school off of his reservation, which was not normal. The school he attends is the main setting of his story and plays a big role. The school shapes Alexie into the character he is and almost acts as a character itself in the story. Alexie's use of ambiguity makes his story more complex and more unique than most stories. It grabs the reader's attention and allows for a broad meaning of what he is trying to say. Ambiguity gets the reader thinking but can also leave the reader confused. But I believe that Alexie’s use of ambiguity is the perfect portrayal of how Alexie is as a person. Sherman Alexie’s Indian Education is the perfect bibliography of his life and the events that take place in

it.