Sherman Alexie Superman And Me
Summary/Analysis of “Superman and Me”
Sherman Alexie’s essay, “The Joy of Reading and Writing: Superman and Me” describes how his childhood experiences of learning to read and write influence who he is today. He discusses how he learns to read and how his love of reading propels him through school. He talks about the cultural attitudes and expectations that inhibit Indian children from succeeding in the classroom and how these experiences influence his decision to become a writer.
Alexie grew up, poor, on a reservation in Spokane, Washington. Thanks to his father’s love of books, Alexie has a wealth of reading material at his disposal. He adores his father and translates his adoration by mimicking his father’s love of books. At a very young age, he has an intellectual breakthrough when he understands that a paragraph is a fence that holds words which work together for a common purpose. He applies this newfound concept to the world around him. He says, “Our reservation was a small paragraph in the United States. My family’s house was a paragraph, distinct from the other paragraph. Inside our house, …show more content…
He understands why the kids in the tribe resist the educational system. They mistakenly think that they can gain power by subverting the system. From a young age, he consciously decided to break away and lead by example regardless of the social repercussions. He admits that he was arrogant and smart, but he survives as a lone wolf, in part, to the strength of those attributes. He absorbs the ridicule that his classmates hurl at him, but he does not deviate from the path. He devours all the reading material he finds. He says, “I read anything that had words and paragraphs. I read with equal parts joy and desperation. I loved those books, but I also knew that love had only one purpose. I was trying to save my life”
Sherman Alexie’s essay, “The Joy of Reading and Writing: Superman and Me” describes how his childhood experiences of learning to read and write influence who he is today. He discusses how he learns to read and how his love of reading propels him through school. He talks about the cultural attitudes and expectations that inhibit Indian children from succeeding in the classroom and how these experiences influence his decision to become a writer.
Alexie grew up, poor, on a reservation in Spokane, Washington. Thanks to his father’s love of books, Alexie has a wealth of reading material at his disposal. He adores his father and translates his adoration by mimicking his father’s love of books. At a very young age, he has an intellectual breakthrough when he understands that a paragraph is a fence that holds words which work together for a common purpose. He applies this newfound concept to the world around him. He says, “Our reservation was a small paragraph in the United States. My family’s house was a paragraph, distinct from the other paragraph. Inside our house, …show more content…
He understands why the kids in the tribe resist the educational system. They mistakenly think that they can gain power by subverting the system. From a young age, he consciously decided to break away and lead by example regardless of the social repercussions. He admits that he was arrogant and smart, but he survives as a lone wolf, in part, to the strength of those attributes. He absorbs the ridicule that his classmates hurl at him, but he does not deviate from the path. He devours all the reading material he finds. He says, “I read anything that had words and paragraphs. I read with equal parts joy and desperation. I loved those books, but I also knew that love had only one purpose. I was trying to save my life”