Profanity

So I was looking more into the usage of profanity in Alexie's writing and cam across this article about a school in Chicago trying to ban his books.

http://www.chicagonow.com/chicago-subtext/2009/06/proposed-sherman-alexie-book-ban-in-chicago-suburban-high-school-updated/

This caused me to look more into the banning of books in high schools. The list that I found of books that have been challenged have a decent chunk of books that we have read here.

http://www.bannedbooksweek.org/censorship/bannedbooksthatshapedamerica

Religious References

I found it very interesting that amount of religious symbolism used by Alexie. For someone who seems to make fun of religion a lot, why continuously incorporate it your stories/poems? I feel that Alexie makes religion a focus because he wants his characters (along with the reader) to be transported to a heavenly beyond. For his characters, a world that is better than the reservations. My essay focuses on the comparison between life on earth and how Alexie uses religious symolbism to create a bond between God and a place (heaven) beyond us. Alexie uses imagination/modern references to allow this transport to seem less religious and more exciting.
Thanks
Matt :)

his writing resonates

As we read Alexie's literature I begin to like his writing more an more. What I find interesting about Alexie's literary works is that fact that he uses crude language and themes paired with more sophisticated concepts like history. The combination of the two provide for a more relatable type of writing. His writing resonates with people as he writes in a way that you can easily understand and he touches upon themes that are relatable for large groups of people. Alexie's writing overall is like talking to one of your peers, it doesn't feel like he is better than you.

Alexie's Common Themes

Father/Son Relationships

One of the many common themes Alexie uses is the relationship between his paternal figures.  The relationship varies throughout the pieces- sometimes they're bad, sometimes distant and sometimes relaxed.  I found a connection with a poem and a short story I found interesting.  Reading the "Father and Son Road Show", we see the son struggling to convince his father to stay on dialysis.  The son doesn't care if "he's planned to die or not" (16), he still wants to save him.  In a short story we read, "Witnesses, Secret and Not", the son says, "my father was forty-one and that's about the age that I figure a man starts to think about dying...or starts to accept it as inevitable" (213).  I thought this connects back to "Father and Son Road Show" in that maybe the father in that poem has already accepted dying, but the son hasn't accepted the fact his father is dying.