Oh boy where do I start with this novel? Well I'm doing the genre presentation for this week but I might as well just play devil's advocate with myself and talk about what I didn't exactly enjoy about this novel (since I already wrote a paper on everything I did like). This is not the first work I have read by Alexie. I read a collection of his poems/short stories in English 110 my freshmen year. I liked some of that collection, but I think I liked this novel more. It was easier to understand.
That being said I think Alexie writes from a place of negativity and angst that is not always enjoyable for the reader. It's obvious he feels Native-Americans have been treated badly in the past and present (and possibly he has a right to think this). I am really unsure about how I feel about the way he writes about the oppression of Native-Americans. For example, when Junior punches Roger in the face and Alexie makes it out to seem Junior was only ever taught violence so he doesn't know any better. This is contradicting, however because Junior's parents are not violent people. He only learned that violence is acceptable from his peers. He knows it's wrong to punch people in the face because he gets upset when he throws his book at the teacher.
It seems throughout the novel "white people" are always the sign of oppression for the Native-Americans. The teachers in the reservation school are white and they are not committed to the students on the reservation supposedly because they are Native-Americans. I don't mean to sound like an "ignorant white person" but I think I would have enjoyed Alexie's novel if it was more realistic, and less about blaming white-people for everything.
Anna, you've brought up points that I hadn't considered when reading the book, and they are good points. I liked that you mention the part about Junior punching the kid and then the insinuation that violence is all Junior was raised to understand. In my blog, I did mention, I think, about Junior's parents being caring parents despite their struggle with alcoholism. There seemed to be a real caring relationship between the parents and the children; it seemed they would do and support whatever Junior wanted into order to be successful. The whole white teacher thing bothered me though. Just because the students are Native American, one cannot just assume their white teachers would not care one bit about them. All in all, however, I did enjoy the book. I liked the presentation with the first person narrative and Junior's point of view on things around him. I especially liked how his cartoons were included in the work. There are many themes to this novel and many ways it could be taught without, I would hope, not putting the blame for the Native American's plight wholly on the shoulders of white people.
ReplyDeleteHello, I saw a lot of the same aspects you did in this novel as well. Even though overall, it was not a bad book, it was manly negative in how it portrayed Native Americans, and Whites. For me I kinda had a hard time seeing the positive in either race portrayed in this novel. There was a lot of negatives about both. With that being said there were still good things about the novel. Like Doreen said about the parents. I agree Junior's parents would have done anything for him I think. I think they really did want him to succeed.
ReplyDeleteI think that Alexie's negativity towards white people is because reservation life is oppressive. The goal of putting Native American people on the reservation was for them to die, and the white person is the easiest target for blame. While some of this hatred may be misguided, Junior watched his family and friends die because reservation life is a dead end. He also acted the way he did because he had limited interaction with white people prior to attending Reardan. I think that his time at Reardan did changed his mind towards white people and other cultures. Did you see a change in the attitude towards white people through the course of the novel?
ReplyDelete-Allison