What Is The Thesis Of Sherman Alexie Superman And Me

The Strive for Greatness

“Education is the passport to the future, for tomorrow belongs to those who prepare for it today.” -Malcolm X. Ever wondered how difficult it might be to achieve greatness while others around you are constantly attempting to bring you down? In Sherman Alexie’s essay “Superman and Me”, the author informs the reader of the struggles he has experienced as a young American Indian boy striving for success. Alexie faces poverty and stereotypes while growing up, yet despite these challenges, he wants to learn, which shows the reader how education can be a gateway for success.

As an American Indian boy growing up with stereotypes and challenges already against him, Sherman self motivates himself to learn, and this leads

to success, this shows the true value of education. Sherman grew up with many challenges in his life that could’ve held him back from his education, but Sherman stays persistent.

Sherman describes his situation at home, “We lived on a combination of irregular paychecks, hope, fear, and government surplus food” (1). When the author is describing his family's situation, he uses zeugma as a device to further show that the family not only lives on paychecks and food, but also emotions, which isn’t logically correct. The reader understands this is zeugma because you can’t physically live off of hope or fear like you can paychecks or food, showing the reader that hope and fear are constantly amongst them in their lives. Sherman faced many battles against stereotypes while growing up, but that wouldn't hold him back from his knowledge or education. “If he'd been anything but an Indian boy living on the reservation, he might have been called a prodigy. But he is an Indian boy living on the reservation and is simply an oddity” (2). When the author is talking about himself and how he was simply just an “oddity” he uses parallel structure as a way to express a stereotype against American Indians and what they can achieve. When understand that the author is using parallel structure because he uses the same pattern of words to show the importance of the

stereotypes and challenges that he had to overcome growing up as an American Indian who wasn’t expected to achieve success. Sherman explains how most American Indian kids are expected to be stupid and fail, making it more difficult for him to want to succeed while others brought him down with negative stereotypes about what he should be. “They wanted me to stay quiet when the non-Indian teacher asked for answers, for volunteers, for help. We were Indian children who were expected to be stupid” (2). Once again, when Sherman Alexie is describing how he was expected to not succeed, he uses parallel structure. He uses parallel structure to show the reader the importance of others not wanting him to speak up in front of non Indian teachers who aren’t aware of his intelligence. Sherman Alexie was surrounded by challenges and naysayers who expected nothing from him, but instead of letting that get to him, he became self motivated to learn, thus succeeding in life, which shows the reader the how education can open up new paths in life.
In brief, Sherman Alexie fuhrer proves that education can be a gateway for success by overcoming obstacles and stereotypes throughout his childhood that set him up for failure. Alexie was faced with poverty and stereotypes throughout his childhood, such as having to live with a constant fear of something or being expected to fail and not succeed because of his ethnicity. Thus leading us to ask ourselves, have we ever taken our education and support from others for granted, almost like it was a given in life?