Exploratory Draft for Sherman Alexie

Sherman Alexie Exploratory Draft

Cale Houghton

My idea is that Alexie is trying to send a message to the kids on the rez of how much pressure is on them, because the kids always have this feeling of invincibility.

The reason I think that this story is aimed at people in the rez is that he doesn’t try to sugar coat anything they do. I think that if this story was aimed at people outside the rez he wouldn’t want to enforce or create stereotypes, but if he is telling it to his own people he would be trying to send a message.

I think that this is based at the kids because:

• He always mentions the kids as the ones failing. The adults are the ones who have already failed, according to Victor. It’s not like adults are the rez heroes. They’re all kids. The adults don’t seem to have a chance once they have failed as a kid.
• He gives his own experiences as a kid, of how he felt invincible and then crashed. He is trying to give his own experiences about childhood, and how suddenly he lost it all at once. He is stressing how important childhood is in this, and trying to give them a sense of urgency.
• The story is about Basketball. I think this is a major reason why this story is so geared towards kids. Sports were probably a lot more of a focus than academics to kids, because thats just how kids are wired. Adults though are more concerned with academics. But this story isn’t about how people on the rez fail academically. It is about how they fail in basketball.

The reason I think this is a warning for the kids instead of just a story for the kids is all it shows is failure. It shows how every rez hero makes the same mistake, and how they all feel invincible before hand. If it was just a story for the kids, it would show people from the rez succeeding, and probably have some kind of moral from which the kids could learn from. But there is no happy ending in this story. It ends with Julian drunk and hopeless, and the Victor and Adrian staring at Lucy and placing all their hopes on her. But we know, nothing really seems to have changed on the rez. They are going through the same old cycle that they always go through. It’s kind of funny because the last scene when they see lucy go by is a lot like the first scene when they see Julius go by. Victor and Adrian are sitting on the porch, drinking from cups, and they notice the next hero go by, brown from the sun and surrounded by friends. I don’t know if this was intentional or not, but to me it seems like it symbolizes the cycle the reservation goes through, with the last scene looping around to the first scene.