Sherman Alexie's Superman And Me

Alexie SWA#1
In “Superman and Me” Sherman Alexie describes his life as a child on the Spokane Indian Reservation. Alexie also explains his love to read that he acquired from his father’s love of reading and books of all kinds. Alexie followed in the footsteps of his father to be successful in providing himself with a better life. Alexie also mentions how most other Indians were not willing or interested in learning or being educated because it was considered an “oddity” (Page 89). Alexie swAlexie’s main point to his writing was to express his feeling towards reading, learning and the importance of a good education especially for his fellow Indians. Because of his concern to save the lives of his young fellow Indians Alexie describes his experiences visiting the schools.

Alexie describes his family to be considered middle class family of seven on their reservation even though they “were poor by most standards” (Alexie pg.

89). Alexie described how his mother, father and four siblings were able to survive from “a combination of irregular paychecks, hope, fear, and government surplus food” (pg. 89).Even during these hard times Alexie’s father managed to fill their home with books “in crazy piles in the bathroom, bedrooms, and living room” (Alexie pg. 89). Needless to say his father loved books and wanted to feed himself with knowledge to be able to feed his family. Alexie loved “his father with an aching devotion” (Alexie pg. 89) so he decided to follow his father’s footsteps at a young age of three to love reading and learning despite that Indians “were expected to be stupid” (pg.

90).
Alexie compared a paragraph to “a fence that held words”. Alexie used this comparison because the word paragraph was not yet in his vocabulary at such a young age. The new knowledge “delighted” Alexie (pg.89). He began to think of everything around him in the terms of paragraphs. For example he thought of his seven family members as seven paragraphs of an essay. Alexie’s used this metaphor to describe how a paragraph’s purpose was to hold information of one single idea such as one family member. He explains how “the words inside a paragraph worked together for a common purpose” (page 89).
While Alexie was trying to save his life he had some painful times being considered an “oddity” (page 90) of the Indians. He was ridiculed by non-Indians and even his fellow Indians. This lead to Alexie fighting with “classmates on a daily basis” (page 90). Along with other Indians Alexie was expected to be stupid and fail in the world outside of the reservation. While Alexie had all of this negativity at school, he persevered because he “refused to fail” (page 91). Alexie made the most of his education because he knew he was “smart”, “arrogant”, “lucky” and trying to save his life (page 91). Since Alexie’s learned his love of books and reading from his father he also had family support of being an educated Indian. All of Alexie’s education and determination lead him to becoming a writer and college graduate. Alexie did not become a pediatrician like original plan but he still maintained the goal of helping the Indian children by visiting their schools. He was trying to save their lives by educating them since he didn’t have these opportunities of visiting teachers as a child. While visiting the schools Alexie realizes he won’t be able to reach and save all of the Indian children.