In the excerpt from “the Unauthorized Autobiography of me”, Sherman Alexie conveys to the reader his nostalgia for when he was a child. He also attempts to emphasize that since that time, his life has become more lonely, and that he doesn't have “protection against the cold”. Alexie accomplishes this goal by discussing a happy moment presumably from his childhood, and he then uses an extended metaphor to explain how he now no longer has these types of connections with the people around him. The first line of the excerpt, “ my cousins are good warriors” is a reference to the fact that when he was growing up on the reservation, western movies taught him that Native Americans were fierce warriors. Although this sentence does not tie in with much of the rest of this excerpt, it is important to other parts of the work discussing conceptions of Native Americans. Alexie then goe son to describe how he is defeated by snow, setting up the idea of cold as a major theme in the passage. When he describes his grave as shallow, Alexie appears to be foreshadowing a lack of care for him, something often identified …show more content…
At the end of the passage, Alexie takes us back to when he was buried in the snow, however, this time he is not simply retelling an event, he is speaking about his current state. He is letting us know that he is nostalgic for his childhood, because he no longer has the connection with people that he had with his snowball fight friends. When Alexie say that his hands are bare, he is referencing an earlier part of the passage where he was unable to afford gloves. Because of his lack of gloves he is exposed to the “cold” also known as life without connection to others. The purpose of this passage is finally completed when the reader comes to realize this fact, and hopefully to sympathize with the