Summary of “Superman and Me” by Sherman Alexie The story Superman and me was written by Sherman Alexie. This short story is about the Sherman Alexie’s life as an Indian boy living on the Spokane Indian Reserve in eastern Washington State and how reading and writing greatly affected his life. This shorts story describes the young Indian boy’s fascination with literature, his intelligence as an Indian, and how he becomes a teacher of creative writing for Indian children.
Sherman Alexie’s first literary experience was when he picked up a book that belonged to his father, although he didn’t understand the words he understood the concept of a paragraph and described it as “a fence that held words. ” This story talks about how as an Indian child the narrator was expected to fail “We were Indian children who were expected to be stupid. Most lived up to those expectations”, but although failure is what was expected of him Sherman Alexie refused to do so.
Alexie was very smart and loved to read, he read anything he could find at every chance he got. I believe the quote “I was trying to save my life” demonstrated the reasoning behind Alexie’s success and thirst for knowledge. Now Alexie teaches creative writing to Indian children and has many students who he describes as students who are “trying to save their lives”. Alexie most likely became a teacher because he is trying to “save” all the Indian people living on the eastern Indian reserve by bringing literature to their attention.
