Sherman Alexie’s “Indian Education” describes his personal experience as a Native American in the American school system while growing up in the 1970s. In this historical period, many white Americans discriminated against those of different races and ethnicities. In this short story, Alexie attempts to open the eyes of white Americans who do not realize what Native Americans and other groups go through to inform them of the hardships he encountered all his life by utilizing stereotyping and the organization of his writing. The intended audience of "Indian Education" is white Americans who either did not realize or were negligent of the troubles Native Americans were enduring. The author uses stereotypes to portray this. An example of this …show more content…
This is obvious because of the organization and tone used. The story is organized by grade level; it starts with his first-grade year and goes up to his twelfth. Each grade level is summed up by one to two main points. Moreover, the tone is a factor in the organization. In the beginning, Alexie throws a tinge of dark humor into the tale, but as the story progresses the humor turns into deep bitterness. An example of the humor used is when he says that his Indian name was ". . . Junior Falls Down. Sometimes it was Bloody Nose or Steal-His-Lunch. Once it was Cries-Like-A-White-Boy, even though none of us had seen a white boy cry." (Alexie 1). This helps represent the humor in the beginning, but as his story goes on the tone gets dark and bitter. For example, "There is more than one way to starve," (Alexie 5). Here he was relating girls suffering from anorexia and bulimia and throwing up in the bathroom to his home life because he grew up in poverty and there would be times when there wasn't enough to eat. In tenth grade he also stated, ". . . everything looks like a noose if you stare at it long enough." (Alexie 5); this is shown again in eleventh grade when he says, "Go ahead and tell me none of this is supposed to hurt me very much." (Alexie