Literary Criticism

Misconceptions of Natives

Sherman Alexie is most famously known for obviously being a native and writing about his experiences that he had growing up. However, with him writing stories about native life collectively it tends to bring a large amount of bias to the topic as a whole. The most known talks of his work is the novel on the left, “The True Diary of a Part Time Indian”. People have depicted that this novel leans to,” Making readers view negatively when all natives aren’t as bad as they say,”(Milton). There are a large amount of issues also with the way he sets up the story, basically saying that native life is awful.

Now, yes he is trying to make fun of the hardships he went through, but some people when they see his novel are actually wanting to understand the true life of what it means to be native. Looking deeper into how he educates people with his novels it has been said that,”Alexie’s approach on educating people of Native life “(Milton). Moreover, throughout his novels it brings attention that native lifestyle is always violence when that actually might be just his own life, not all native lives. Also, it brings attention to alcoholism a lot throughout his writing which isn’t exactly true for all native lifestyles. Overall, his writing brings a wide range of interesting writing choices when it comes to native lives and how hard they can be.

Racial topics

In all of Alexie’s novels there comes a vast variety of jokes that can be very crude or the complete opposite. A topic that is most noticeable is he tends to have a large amount of racial jokes and topics made throughout his novels that just aren’t necessarily needed in his writing. For example, his book Flight is filled with these topics as the main character Zit encounters as he travels through the views of different peoples’ lives. Also his, ”Racial shifts and conflicts with his writing,”(Sprouse) make the reader more confused on whether or not certain parts of the novel are real or not.

Next, his usage of racial topics/jokes makes readers feel extremely off putting because some of the jokes he uses in his novels could apply to the people reading his novels. There tends to be, “Strains of racial ambiguity,”(Sprouse) which can make it very difficult for Alexie’s novels to be read because of the randomness that goes on throughout his writing. From all the research I have done collectively it seems that his writing style seems like just a bunch of random thoughts put together into a novel or two, meaning it doesn’t make a lot of sense to the readers.

Style and Tone Overall

While Sherman Alexie has indeed brought some good amount of success in his works there still seems to be an off putting writing style he carries. He brings a large amount of anger from his past into his works. The anger and frustration throughout all of the novels just makes the reader feel like there really isn’t a story being told only his past that he cannot coupe with. Also, with Alexie’s rage sewed into his writing it makes readers experience a large amount of graphic word choice. It draws attention to, ”Less informative more just anger about his life”(McFarland).

Alexie incorporates incredibly dark humor at times that leaves people saying it, ”Takes a turn in the writing and feels almost crude and dark”(McFarland). With dark humor that makes his novels become much less avaiobale to younger readers and even some older readers dislike the tone and humor he creates. People often say that his writing is mainly just ,” Dark humor and satire”(McFarland) which is a very bad reputation to build up and makes Alexie become more of a adult reader (less audience). Collectlyive Sherman Alexie’s books are widely looked upon as just the maturity of a teenage boy who hates his past and most the way he sets up his tone in the book to be mostly angry

Narrative technique

Diving into more of Alexie’s writing that he shares with the world is how his work seems just too personal. When he is in the works of his writing it very much comes off like it is mainly a diary entry just to vent. Also, it has been described as the , “Spill over all boundaries effectively blurring distinctions between the personal and the collective”(Ford). With that being stated this can bring attention to how no matter what the writing is it always seems to have some form of conection to Alexie’s past. So there is very little actual writing there it is mainly just his history being told and expressed most promptly through anger and frustration.

Moreover, his books have been expressed as just narratives that he branches off slightly with a large amount of his irritation. The question that is always brought up when reading his novels,”Is it informal or formal”(Ford)? Now, a distinction like that should be made because it will bring the reader in better and give them a good understanding of what the book is about and certain characters. Continuing on, Alexie’s technique is indeed filled with anger but again it is just his life not all native lives, therefore, it is very difficult to generalize his novels to all native lives.

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