Native American Social Realism

Sherman Alexie’s Literary Works as Native American Social Realistic

Senior Lecturer (Full-time), Department of English, IBAIS University, Bangladesh

Research Associate (Part-time), Uttara University, Bangladesh

E-mail:[e-mail]/ [e-mail]

This paper aims to look at the social realistic issues in the context of Sherman Alexie’s literary works.

Alexie is one of the postmodern authors in the United States of America. He is very popular among

his Native American society as well as community for representing social reality of his age. This

paper is divided into several sections; each section shows a benchmark of the 21st century Social

Picture of the Native Americans in the light of Alexian Literary Works.

Each subsection is arranged to

highlight the textual analysis of Alexie through applying the critical theory of social realism.

2. Theoretical Framework

Social Realism is a naturalistic realism focusing on social issues and the hardships of everyday

life. The term refers to the urban American scene of the depressive artists, who were influenced

by the Ashcan school of the early 20th century New York. Social realism, an international art

movement, refers to the work of painters, print-makers, photographers, and film-makers that

draw attention to the everyday conditions of the working class and the poor; social realists are

critical of the social structures which maintain these conditions. While the movement’s

characteristics vary from nation to nation, it almost always utilizes a form of descriptive, or

critical realism. The principal source of the subject matter of the works of social realism is made

up of problems connected with human life, the works, thoughts and actions of the people who are

either trying to establish a hierarchic society or who are struggling for their rights in capitalist,

rather than socialist

As a manner of writing, realism relies on the use of specific

details to interpret life faithfully and objectively. In contrast to romance, this concerned

with the bizarre and psychological in its approach to character, presenting the individual

rather than the type. Often, fate plays a major role in the action. Realism became

prominent in the English novel with such writers as Daniel Defoe, Samuel Richardson,

Henry Fielding, Tobias Smollett, Laurence Sterne, Jane Austen, Charlotte Bronte,

Anthony Trollope and William Makepeace Thackeray (Dictionary of Literary Terms, p.

163).

The term ‘Realism’ is widely accepted according to need and time. Realism in literature and the

visual art used to describe a variety of approach in which accurate depiction of reality is the aim.

Each of these uses involves a contrast between human thought or imagination and an external

reality independent of mind. The notion that reality has a cognitive or normative authority on the

mind is generally present (Chapter 2: Social Realism, pp.