Even just by reading pages 5-12, I can tell that Ta-Nehisi Coates is a good writer because his essay is highly thoughtful and provocative, and the well-written narrative provides lots of powerful examples to depicts the racial struggle in the U.S. He told his son, “You must always remember that the sociology, the history, the economics, the graphs, the charts, the regression all land, with great violence, upon the body.” The concept of violence upon the body appears on every important point of my reading. This is more powerful than the examples of law enforcement and black Americans because it leads the reader to truly see the the fears provoked.
The first time one is able to comprehend the meaning of a word is a momentous childhood moment that is forever engraved in one’s memory. Books and reading are significantly impactful to people’s lives; Mark Twain said that, “books are for people who wish they were somewhere else.” This statement is apropo for Sherman Alexie, who was a Native American living on a reservation during the time he learned to read. Sherman Alexie convinces his audience that an education is crucial to being successful by using personal anecdotes to captivate and create a connection with his audience and repetition to reiterate the importance of having an education. Alexie's use of personal anecdotes fortifies the impact he has on his audience.
A simple act of violence can genuinely affect an individual's state of mind. Through violence, individuals feel empowered and are tempted to prolong their violent nature. This results in one heinous act, following with worse violence. In Shakespeare’s Macbeth and Ishmael Beah’s A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of A Boy Soldier, both authors effectively highlight a theme, that violence will ultimately lead to more violence.
Throughout history, violence has played a major role in our society and has been consistent in every generation. Constantly, we are hearing about violence through the media and for some people, we are witnessing the violence firsthand. Violence can be defined as the intentional use of physical force or power, vulnerable or actual, against oneself, another person, or against a community. Violence can end up in or incorporates a high chance leading to injury, death, psychological trauma, and deprivation. There are many different reasons people commit violent acts, an example of this can be self defense or anger.
Outsiders are a common sources of topic throughout literature and are defined as people who differ from what society deems as normal or having normal qualities. Throughout the semester, we have read several works that use outsiders to help convey a certain theme or message and there was one particular work that stood out from the rest. While reading “The Joy of Reading and Writing: Superman and Me” by Sherman Alexie, the use of outsiders was incredibly effective due to Sherman using his own experiences of being an outsider throughout his life. This essay is the perfect example of the use of outsiders because of Alexie discussing how his parents raised him, his childhood experiences in school, and his adulthood ambitions. First of all, Alexie
Violence can completely change people’s lives During 1965 the caste people were viewed only as thieves and worthless people. Similarly immigrants were treated the same way and often were violated against their skin color and ethical background. It was very unusual for a caste person and immigrants to be accepted into the society. Craig Silvey shows this in the novel Jasper Jones a lot of families were broken down due to violence and their prejudice coming from their within the family or outside.
Superman is usually a childhood favorite to most boys and girls. He saved lives and made the world a better place. Sherman Alexie, the author of “Superman and Me”, is similar to Superman. He “saves lives” for some Indian children who cannot read. As they refuse to read and write, Alexie relates to the children he helps, because he was in the same situations in his early childhood.
The novel Reservation Blues, written by Sherman Alexie reveals different struggles encountered by the Native Americans on the Spokane Indian Reservation through the use of history, traditions, and values. Thomas Builds-the-Fire, a pureblood Indian, forms a band with his childhood acquaintances Victor Joseph and Junior Polatkin called Coyote Springs. Alexie uses a variety of scenes and personal encounters between characters and their dialogue to portray the meaning of tribal identity throughout the novel. A cultures goal is to prove their identity and be superior to one another; The American culture has achieved dominance through white hegemony while the Spokane American Indian tribe is in a battle of oppression struggling to preserve their tribal identity. Spokane Native Americans are very passionate about their tribal identities yet are envious of the power that the white hegemony holds against them, leading them to their depression.
Violence is unacceptable We are living in a turbulent world. On average, there are about 150,000 deaths every day because of diseases, old age, traffic accidents, and especially violence. The data from FBI indicates that in 2013, an estimated 1,163,146 violent crimes occurred in America, and somebody commits a hate crime every hour ("Violent Crime”). The fact that more and more gruesome murders happen shows that we are living in fear of violence, and this violence is unacceptable. FBI’s Uniform Crime Reporting Program states that, “violent crime is composed of four offenses: murder and non-negligent manslaughter, rape, robbery, and aggravated assault,” ("Violent Crime”).
Injustice always needs indifferent inaction to sustain itself, and to break this cycle, you must have violence. This violence is directed at injustice, in the hope that the indifferent group will join the ranks of the people who care. According to
Another fact Pinker uses to illustrate how the violence started and how we are where we stand today in society is “Forensic archaeology – a kind of “Csi : Paleolithic” can estimate rates of violence from the proportion of skeletons in an ancient site with bashed in skulls, decapitations or arrowheads embedded in bones.” With this evidence from the text the reader may also conclude that not only was the era of primitive society barbaric, but those who committed the crimes didn’t value human life. In contrast to this Pinker’s uses the fact, “On average 15% of people in pre-state eras died violently compared to about 3% of the earliest states”. This evidence from the article illustrates to the readers that before the earliest states were made more than one fifth of people died from violent deaths in the world’s
Often times, mindless conformity leads to senseless violence that could have been avoided with just a little more thought. In order to justify hateful and exclusive acts, the actions of people in minorities are often taken
1. What myth about violence is happening today? The myth about violence happening today is that modernity has brought us terrible vilence and perhaps that native people live in a state of harmony that we have departed form our peril.
In Sherman Alexie’s short stories (and poems), there usually three central themes that the story rotates. In this paper, I will be exploring how he (Alexie) explores the themes losing culture, a cycle of regret, and using drugs (mainly alcohol) to escape. In Indian Education, the short story, Alexie seems to show that whenever young Victor tries to express himself through his culture, he is punished. Take the section “First Grade” for example. In first grade, Junior (the main character and narrator) says that “The little warrior in me roared to life that day..” and makes comparisons to traditional Native American warriors, such as describing the brusies on the other boy’s face as “war paint” or how Junior chants “it’s a good day to die”, which is phrase typically associated with Crazy Horse, who was a Native American chief.
In a corrupt society, the line between moral and immoral is blurred. People, especially the poor, have to coexist with corruption while trying to define their own sense of right and wrong. People’s definition of morality can go against society’s expectations when they want to escape from their hardships. While the Indian society in The White Tiger considers murder to be a brutal and immoral action, Balram embraces the murder as the only choice that can help him thrive for
