Having read "Superman and Me" and "Indian Education" and the poem below by Sherman Alexie, what are the interconnections between these three genres: poetry, short fiction and personal essay or memoir? What is the author telling us about his or our world? Where do the three intersect? I've also include the link to the poem's website above.
A Poem Written in Replication of My Father’s Unfinished Novel Which He Would Read to His Children Whenever He Was Drunk
Indian Summer. Leaves fallen
from government trees. They remind me of sex.
My mother and father dead.
My father fell
at Okinawa, shot by a Japanese sniper.
I do not hate the Japanese. My lover is
Japanese. She reminds me of sex.
Pregnant, my mother coughed
blood into a paper tissue.
She died two weeks after I was born.
Now my Japanese lover is pregnant. She whispers
stories to her stomach about a small island
in the Pacific where her father killed
an American soldier during the war.
My lover and I wonder aloud
if her father killed my father.
We shiver in the heat of it.
It reminds us of sex.
After my parents died, I lived
with my aunt, who had enough money
to send me to Catholic School. I was
the only Indian who went to Catholic School
on purpose. I learned to play piano.
I jitterbugged with Catholic girls
and their pale thighs.
They smelled like sex.
I fell in love with all of them.
I learned chord after chord. Sex.
Often, these days, I stand at the window
of my reservation home
while my Japanese lover sleeps alone
in the scattered bed. She is pregnant.
Her father and mother live
with the dead in Hiroshima.
My father and mother are also dead.
Piano. Chord after chord. Island.
That window. This window.
One Indian boy runs
blindly through the trees.
A shadow falls
over everything.
Sex. Leaf, Faith. Glass.
If I stand at the window long enough
I will see the long thread of history
float randomly through the breeze.
This is all I know about peace.
(Reprinted with permission from One Stick Song, Hanging Loose Press, 2000.)
27 comments:
These three pieces of literature give us information about the author's life. He tends to write about his memoirs, his past, living on the Indian Reservation, life with his parents, on how literature changed his life and everything that relates to what he has lived.
He writes about struggles, about having different ideas, about hope.
The three function together as an autobiography. Sherman Alexie's literature comes mostly from life experience.
Vanessa Estrada- M10
The poem, story and personal essay connects with the story of the Indians, how they live, how all the personal experiences in the reservations mark them and make them change every day, how some of them make them be better, how some not, how is their treatment with the non-indians. We can see how his world is different in some ways to ours and similar in some ways too. Different is in the way that everyone treats them different and like we saw in Superman and me they like to be different, they don’t show their intelligence. In the similar way we can see in two of the stories with all the experiences they had, they always try to be better and because we always have someone that think he is better than us.
I had to read this twice to actually
understand it. I actually thought there where yust random thougts put into it but after i read it again.I noticed that its about the authors life and some of its most relevant memories from his childhood
He writes about his family, struggles and experiences...
This three lectures involve memoirs or the authors, situations they went through and life experiences.
In Indian Education we see how the author talks about his life on the Indian Reservation, how he was treated and how he went trough hall those things, he also shows how his life changed after all.
1) What are the interconnections between these three genres: poetry, short fiction and personal essay or memoir?
** I believe the interconnections that exist among these three genres is the tendency to narrate a realistic and personal experience in relation with social struggles confronted in the United Sates due to simply being from a different race other than white American. There is also present in each style the thought of why couldn’t things be different, and with this interrogation, the sense of courage and determination to live to make a statement and ultimately a difference also relates closely.
2) What is the author telling us about his or our world?
**I understood that the author was revealing a known yet ignored truth affecting many cultures; which is that many people of different ethnicities have been known to treat each other poorly since years ago to this day. Yet the author also brought to mind that this was not true for others. I believe he also presents this truth as a conflict before those who can relate to other people from different origins, since certain attitudes of rejection and discrimination are assumed to be practiced by them. Finally, an important point that in my opinion the author wishes to communicate is reflected by the use of the word sex through a few lines. The message I accomplished to understand was that despite many of humanities differences we are all equal in some way, we all are humans, we all have needs and we all hope for our passion in life to be fulfilled, whether it be spiritual or physical.
3) Where do the three intersect?
**I spotted a very obvious intersection within all three pieces of work and it is the mention of a young Native American boy assisting to a Catholic School trying to prove his capacities and good qualities to those who assumed the contraire, due to his race and unjust social stereotype.
1. Having read "Superman and Me" and "Indian Education" and the poem below by Sherman Alexie, what are the interconnections between these three genres: poetry, short fiction and personal essay or memoir?
*The interconnections between these three genres is that they can be based on real-life stories. In his essay, his poem and his story he talked about his life and all the things that he passed during his life since he was a small kid.
2. What is the author telling us about his or our world?
*He wants us to know that in this world it is not easy at all to live and that we must not stop for what other people think or say about us. He also teaches us to have this patriotic pride that we all must have. I believe that to mention his world in his works is like in order that we have an example of him. In spite of the fact that he had his difficulties, he strained for not being like the others. Today he is a successful man.
3. Where do the three intersect?
* These three stories intersect in that he speaks to us about his experiences in life as an Indian boy. They are the events that were motivated him to be a better person day after day. We can also see in them the struggle in his diary to live.
When we talk about the interconection between these genres, it makes sen ce in me that what they have in common is that they all express the fellings i=of frustration and sadness, also they all tell astory regarding on bad experiences.
The author presents a message in which I think he sees it as a terrible place were peace is not found.I feel this is the way he thinks because he had a hard childhood, that gave him the wrong perseption of what is realy peace and love.
The fact that these three genres are about Native American's culture mistreatement, discrimination,or frustration it gives the intercepting point were these three can relate to one and another.
The 3 genders interconnect in the mode that reflects the felling of the author in a direct way without bush. Sherman Alexis interlaces the three pieces and gives us an open perspective of his life as an Indian American. With each literature piece he gives you a bit of the puzzle that explains the way he see the world. I personally just love the sarcasm he uses to explain the injustice he lives just because the ethnic group he is from and this is something this world is like never let off, unfortunately.
I really admire this guy, because he lived a life full of suffers and people that suffers in the past like Sherman did, they doesn’t turn out to be heroes and inspires to other people, they tend to become Misfits. The interconnections between the three genres he wrote is that they are a representation and a narration about the life he lived, the suffers and the struggles. He lived times of devastation like the Second Global War and the termination of this war by the atomic bomb in Hiroshima. The time of his youth teaches him that peace doesn’t exist in the world and even doesn’t exist in his family with all the suffer of a dead father and a dead mother.
He wants the reader to know that no matter what race you are we are all humans (HOMO SAPIENS), the same needs “sex”, we live in the same world were the levees from the trees falls, it should exist the peace between our lives; working in companion to a better future. It is right what he thinks, we are all the same; we even are made by the same elements that compose our body’s, coked in the most inner part (nucleus) of stars in our galaxies.
Diego H. Gonzlez Bravo
INGL 3104 MB5
The interconnections between these three genres: poetry, short fiction and personal essay or memoir are that all of them are used by the author as a way to let the readers know about important details and information about his own life. The author uses them as a diary.
The author is telling that the only thing we can see in both worlds is discrimination and segregation towards people we think are different.
The three of them intersect in that they talk about the life of a young indian boy, and the things he had to suffer in what the author calls our world.
The interconnection between this three pieces of literature is that the author is talking not only about his life and his struggles but he is also expressing his feelings and emotions.
I find it fascinating how the author can connect these three different genres to tell us the story of his life. I believe that since his childhood, Sherman Alexie had a problem with identity.
I don't mean a problem with identity as in that he didn't know who he really was, because we can see in "Indian Education" that he knew very well who he was and where he came from and he was proving it constantly. What i mean is that because of his identity, of who he was, he had trouble fitting in, it was his daily struggle. We basically can say that he dealt with a lot of racism.
I think the author is trying to tell us the harsh but true reality of not being accepted in a society that discriminates.
I find interesting that with each literature of Sherman Alexie we get to expirience a segment of his life. We can see "Superman and me" as the begginig of his life. "Indian Education" as the period of maturity and transformation throught school. And we can iterprete this poem as his present life.
Ingl-3104-M10
The interconections abouts the three typesof gender are very attach one to another. At firt look the three genders seem different but are connected in he same idea. Also I consider is a continuation of his life. First the personal essay he introduce us to her fatger and the first time that he learn to read. Second he tell us how was her experiences in school grade by grade until twelve grade in Indian Education an how the indians were threat. And finally in the poem he tell us mature things about sex, her parents and war.These are different gender but are connected to tell us his life.
what are the interconnections between these three genres: poetry, short fiction and personal essay or memoir?
It shows us how a writter a good writer dosent need to use the same type of writting to get out his message and how he could be versatile and still get it clear in every genre.And also he shows us in the three genres the struggles the indians have to live with every day, and even when he uses diferent expresions and even try to show us he can come on top everytime, he still suffers when he sees how is people dosent try to make things different.
What is the author telling us about his or our world?
The auhor is telling us the differents beetwen his world and our world. and shows us that even when we all live in the same planet, is extremly diferent for people just casue of the color of there skin, languange and ethnicity.
And how we all need to start looking at everyone as a whole not just look and say your different from me so go away. And the struggle he had growing up just for the fact that he wanted to be smart and show it ,but just casue he was indian he were suppost to look stupid and stay that way always.
Where do the three intersect?
They intersect in the idea use to write all of them he always show us the struggle he had in his chilhood and then when he was an adult.
Also he mentions an Indian who went to catholic school on purpose, in all three genres.
When I read these three lectures, it all intertwined into telling the story of his struggles, his problems when he was a child, and his life experiences dealing with social problems in the U.S.
What he tries to communicate to us in all three lectures is that we all need to be proud of who you are, and that even though we come from different places, different races and different perspectives on how we live, we all live in the same planet earth and that we need to respect one another.
If you could combine the lectures together, you can make an autobiography about this author, it's the only example simple enough that can make people understand what he says in all of the lectures together.
1.What are the interconnections between these three genres: poetry, short fiction and personal essay or memoir?
Well all of them have autobiographicals facts about Sherman Alexie´s life. About his personal and professional achievements, sadness, thoughts education, attitude towards feelings or life. Also the fact that is always mentioning about his ethnical origins and how difficult could turn the life from a person of a different race that lives in the United Sates. But no so much for him because by the way he describe himself we could see that no matter how much difficulties he had to pass trough, his determination of being more and better were bigger than those struggles.
2.What is the author telling us about his or our world?
He is telling us that no matter where you from or what profession or job do you have or which are your believes we can´t give up just because the world around us seems much more stronger than us. Or just because society label us bacause for what we are what we have or where we come from. Although society tries to make us think we can´t fight fairly to demonstrate that cultures, ethnical origins, ideologies etc. could be tons of but human race is just one which means that all of us have the same rights just for being part of human race.We can´t give up we should have to be determinated persons with firm ideals , beliefs and confidence in ourselves.
3.Where do the three intersect?
This three genres intersect in his own experiences from being lndian and the way this fact have effects and influences on his life.
The three pieces of literature of writing by Sherman Alexie are great. This three pieces expresses how he is proud to Indian. But also he says how the other people in society sees the Indian people. In this three pieces is wrote his live in an unique way. Also I think he just want to all the people to learn how they great they could be, he all the Indians continues his steps.
Alexander Ortiz MB5
Well the author uses his Indian culture as the center point of each text. It demonstrates the struggles and the stereotype that Indians face, how the government threats them, outsiders (non Indian) and also the struggles with his own culture and own people and how they see him as being different. Also I think each text from Sherman Alexie is connected with his life experiences. In each text he makes a social commentary highlighting his point of view, but in a humorous way, a bit sarcastic, and seaming a bit cruel in times but giving a harsh sense of reality.
I believe that the author is telling us about the struggle of being different. Let me explain myself, people are scared of what they don’t know or understand, and are ignorant towards it. That’s what has happened in our world I believe from the beginning of time. Not accepting, not tolerating and the mind set of superiority has been the cause wars, creating stereotypes , hate, racism, discrimination and many awful things. I don’t see this only as an issue of racism, I see the author showing how people threat people who are different, he was and Indian as the other boys at school and still he was being teased and bullied because of him being different. The author gives a message of hope. He has struggled all his life for being who he is, although he has gone through many hardships in his life he has triumph and battled his way. Also there is a message of acceptance, not let race or just differences set us apart, we are human beings and we should all have mutual respect towards each other and try to understand that everybody has a different way of seeing the world.
The three of them intersect using the point of view of an Indian who has struggle with his life because of him being different, trying to succeed and handle all the situations he has been thrown at.
José M. Delgado Díaz
First of all we all know Sherman Alexis is proud of it native Indian ancestors. The 3 genres interconnect in a simple point of view on the things that he have pass because of being from this culture. I other word he is talking about the different times of his life and the realities he have face toward society. These realities can be some of his struggles or even his ideas. This all tree may be represented as his steps in life or ways of viewing from his perspective. I think that Sherman should be proud on the things that he is doing and is trying to transmit us that we should do the same in order to commemorate our ancestor with pride. To look out in to the world and have a certain knowledge about the real basis of life.
Carlos M Font Lewis
INGL-3104-MB5
These three stories are all about the life of the author. In the stories I think that his main point would be to show us how racism can affects a childrens life. His life I think was affected because in all of his stories he talks about all the bad things that happend to him and even though he succed he still wants us to know how mean were people with him and how a culture can separate people. These stories in all three of them you see first the bad thing that happend to him and then like the happy ending. No matter what he's going to say always something bad haves to be more important. He tries to tell us how mean were people with him and now he's a succesful person and he is trying to teach us that you can't give up just because of people who doesn't want to see you secced.
The three stories talk about the writer's personal life. They talk about how being different affected their personal and social life. As Indians they struggled to be accepted by others, they were misjudged. The three stories intersect in the difficulties of living and being rejected because of their race and how their problems inspired them to write and expose their feelings and experiences to others
Emily Joan Maldonado Soto
INGL-3104-MB5
Luis Fernando Adorno
The author writes about his personal expiriences and to me, in the way he writes the stories, is like his way to see things as he grows up. In Indian education we see what happens in each grade until high school. To me he writes about his progression through out his entire life.
The interconnections between this three genres, poetry, short fiction and personal essay or memoir is that in all of them he talks about the cronology of his life since his childhood until his manhood. And how he fights for the things he wants sorrounded by a racial discrimination society.
This three always intersect in the school, the only Indian who stands out from the others, and do what the other indians wouldn't do.
Well i think that he is like dividing his live in this three genres. Like he talks about family in one his personal experiences at school and how he was raise.
By reading all three stories and can see that its not easy being a Indian kid but its not impossible ether.
The three intersect at the problems he faced went being in school like racist or being smarter than others.
The three literary works reflect the author´s life, how he has come to know the world. For him the world is a clash of cultures, nothing is "pure", as in terms of been from the same root. He had a Japanese partner and non-Indian teachers. He grow in a place with a mix of different cultures, of different perspectives.
The works intersect in the fact that the protagonist is strugguling against the forces of culture and tradition. He feels the urge to find a middle point between all the things and discover real peace and understanding.
I see each type of genre as an especific tool for expresion, of ideas, emotions and thinking even spirituality. The author choses the genre that fits the most for an expecific idea or feeling, and expands from there. Like a tree growing up branches and roots. I think each genre complements one and the other, but depending only on themselves. I think the author is on a mission to explore who he is,and what kind of things makes him the person he his right now. Does his roots make him the person he is right now? How does contemporary culture influence or changes the way he is or the way he chosses to be vs. his ancestors way to look at life? How does living in a reservation makes him feel? How does he deal with multiculturalism? I think Sherman Alexie has some definite good points to talk about and from here I think he's looking for his self identity. And what better way to do this than to write.
I think that this tree is just the author's experience throughout life. He tell us everything from how his parents died, his Japanese lover, to his education. He mention that he was the first indian that went to a Catholic School. There he learned to play piano, and said that fell in love with all the Catholic girls. He stands on that window thinking about his past, and it could be related with his pregnant lover.
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