Growing
up on a reservation, Sherman Alexie saw and experienced things that greatly
influenced his writing. The Spokane Indian reservation was “…plagued with
poverty, violence and substance abuse” (Donovan). Sherman Alexie is no stranger to violence. As a
child on the reservation, Alexie states “I humiliated everybody and had my nose
broken five times after school for being the smart kid” (“A Reservation of the Mind”). Alexie loved
to read and throughout his educational career at the reservation he read and
re-read the books in his library (“A
Reservation of the Mind”). Due to his knowledge and extensive
reading, the other reservation kids called him out for that and he got beat. In
“This Is What It Means to Say Phoenix, Arizona,” “Victor and Thomas got into a
fistfight. The beating might have gone on until Thomas was dead if Norma Many
Horses hadn’t come along and stopped it” (This is What 392). Knowing what it felt like to get beaten up, Alexie decided to
include his personal experiences into his work. It shows audiences that life on
the reservation as an outcast was hard. If offered us insight on how Native
Americans viewed and treated outcasts and people who were different.