Reservation Blues By Sherman Alexie
Reservation Blues by Sherman Alexie represents to its audience thetale of how the Native Americans had to abdicate their belief, Religion andways of life after the coming of the White Men. Until the coming of theWhite Men, the Native Americans were divided into a number of tribes, eachpreaching their own religion and living according to their own culture andtradition. After defeating the Indians on the battlefield and conqueringtheir lands, the White Men forced them to give up their traditional ways,convert to the faith of Christianity and adopt modernity. In the novel, the author illustrates many contradictions of the Indian
This is where Michael White Hawk comes in. Whites had their ownskewed notions of Indianness, but even with such (mis)representations, realIndians managed to stay present at the margins, insinuating their way into Euro-American discourse, often attempting to nudge notions of Indianness in directions theyfound useful (Douglas Ford, Sherman Alexie's Indigenous Blues). The difficulty, which arises in recognizing these forms, originates fromthe propagation of the Native American Image anthologized from Whitefantasies. As a result of this, Alexie creates a form of doubleconsciousness in the Native Americans who look for their own reflectionswithin them. ation of the present day Indian Scene with thehurting accuracy of praetorian tribal politicians, ruffians who are at thehigher authority then these politicians, drunken parents, inediblecommodity food, 7-11 stores, Catholicism, Christianity, ancient Indianknowledge and prudence and the maniacal world of softball and basketball. Deloria, Early American development of a revolutionary identity, created anopportunity for Native Americans to help shape American culture. ReservationBlues connotes that no contaminated form of the Indian culture subsists. He writes of Big Mom's former students, Indian men likeMichael White Hawk, who once was drawn to her blues-toned teaching but whostarted to believe their own publicity and run around acting like theIndians in movies (Douglas Ford, Sherman Alexie's Indigenous Blues). He is a precarious and anunsteady man who spends his days walking on the grounds of the parochialSoftball field and it is through his character that these anomalies of theIndian ways of life, despite the frequent crossing over into burlesque, areexpressed through the poetic candor. Hence, through the character of Michael White Hawk, the author intendsto counter this propagation of image, mixed with the real one. Instead, evidence of the real elements of the culture can only be redeemedin the silhouette and semblance of the American mass, media and culture.
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Acceptance Essays
