Sherman Alexie has created a beautiful and strong connection with his readers with this essay depicting his life as a child, living on an Native American reservation in the Pacific Northwest of America. With his colorful language and emotional memories of learning to read and learning how to connect to his own identity and the identities of others, Alexie has gripped the attention of the reader and created a bond that allows his narrative to resonate with many. I, unfortunately, did not receive the Narrative Technique handout, but have found a few sites online so I can choose specific techniques to identify and respond to. (Techniques will be underlined.)
The first moment that struck me an emotional chord when reading this essay is Alexie's point of view moment describing what he remembers about wanting and beginning to read. "My father loved books, and since I loved my father with an aching devotion, I decided to love books as well." This line allows the reader to understand how strong Alexie's bond to his family - specifically his father - is. It brings the reader back to the moments in all of our childhoods when you don't exactly understand why you want to do something but, because you adore and admire one special adult in your life with such tenacity, you feel the need to conquer the same tasks and hobbies that they have.
Alexie's realization of paragraphs was another favorite moment of mine.
"I still remember the exact moment when I first understood, with a sudden
clarity, the purpose of a paragraph. I didn't have the vocabulary to
say "paragraph," but I realized that a paragraph was a fence that held
words. The words inside a paragraph worked together for a common purpose... I began to think of everything in terms of paragraphs. Our reservation was a small paragraph within the United States...Now, using this logic, I can see my changed family as an essay of seven
paragraphs: mother, father, older brother, the deceased sister, my
younger twin sisters and our adopted little brother."
This excerpt gives the reader a lot of personal information through use of analogy. Using the relation of how paragraphs stand as many words for the same cause, Alexie articulates the bonds of close knit communities and within ourselves as individuals that stand for specific or the same purpose. For me, as a reader, point of view as the strongest technique used and evoked the most emotion. There are so many different aspects of Alexie's life to relate to, he is of a minority, he is of the lower income, he is working against the odds to "save his life" and he is a mentor to others as he grows and time shifts. His essay comes full circle as he closes with his experience as a traveling writer to teach children on reservations about books and reading and education and the power of knowledge. The imagery used to describe persuasion of resistant students is extremely powerful. "The pages of their notebooks are empty. They carry neither pencil nor pen. They stare out the window. They refuse and resist. "Books," I say to them. "Books," I say. I throw my weight against their locked doors. The door holds. I am smart. I am arrogant. I am lucky. I am trying to save our lives."
