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You Don T Have To Say You Love Me By Sherman Alexie

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You Don’t Have to Say You Love Me, by Sherman Alexie is a grief drenched memoir that explores Alexie’s relationship with his mother and the emotional baggage she left him. While this book mainly revolves around the death of Alexie’s mother, Lillian, it also reflects on themes like generational trauma and grief. Through telling stories from his life Alexie blatantly explains how growing up on a reservation impacted his adult life. While having similar themes to his other novels, You Don’t Have to Say You Love Me stands apart from his other writing for being brutally honest and open about his life. This book most definitely deserves to be on the AP reading list for giving the reader the opportunity to gain perspective on all the different things …show more content…

We learn from Alexie’s writing how the grief of his mother dying left him broken and unresolved. Lillian Alexie gave up her drinking addiction to save her children, but she still left her children wondering if she loved them. She sacrificed so much to save her family, friends, and complete strangers. You Don’t Have to Say You Love Me tries to explain why Lillian made every decision and sacrifice that she did. We learn many elaborate truths about Lillian, like how she was the product of a rape and how she lost her first born daughter to a trailer fire. All of this could explain why Lillian was mercurial, abusive and complex. Through Alexie’s exploration of his own life, we are able to see how Lillian being Alexie’s mother impacted everything in his …show more content…

Generational trauma is the passing down of traumatic experiences through several generations. Alexie shares some of the traumas he has experienced through his stories and poetry. He shares how the abuse of generations Native Americans by white people impacted his entire culture. Alexie says, “We might turn racist and sexist and homophobic--turning against those people as powerless as or more powerless than us.” (Sherman Alexie, pg 294). In the book he explains how the abuse and trauma Native American people have suffered impacts the way that many people are today. Making them hate “power” and “weakness”, but also connecting them with one greater purpose; to

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