Download Analyzing Sherman Alexie's Postmodern Aesthetics: Identity, Style, and Themes and more Papers English Language in PDF only on Docsity! Sherman Alexie’s Postmodern Aesthetics From Bruce Goebel, “The Business of Fancydancing and Postmodern America” in Reading Native American Literature: A Teacher’s Guide, NCTE Studies of multicultural literature often focus on ethnic identity and exclude matters of craft, artistry and aesthetics. We’ll examine Alexie’s work to understand how Alexie uses language for particular effects. For each of the poems we read, you will write 1) a response to each piece 2) observations about such themes and topics as identity, ethnicity, family, gender, and sports 3) descriptions of style and form Consider the following questions: 1. What are your personal responses to the poem? Did you like it? Why or why not? What parts appealed to you the most? How does the piece make you feel? Why: What passage particularly evoked those feelings? That did you find most interesting of puzzling about the piece? 2. How does Alexie construct Native American identity within the piece? What qualities or characteristics are exhibited by the person or characters? If applicable, how does Alexie make use of stereotype and /or the rhetoric of race in his construction of identity? What does Alexie seem to suggest about the role of sports, family, alcohol, and gender in people’s lives? (Feel free to respond to other themes or topics as you see them emerge.) 3. How would you describe Alexie’s style? What words of phrases does Alexie repeat? What interesting syntax or word arrangements do you notice? How does Alexie make use of figurative language? How would you describe the formal structure of the piece? How might the style and form contribute to your understanding of the content? Alexie’s typical stylistic features—“stylistic signature”: Use of nouns as adjectives—“reservation November night”—which gives an original and musical quality to the writing Use of adjective phrases—“three in the morning highway”—which also gives an original and musical quality to he writing Use of aphorism—“Every highway in the world crosses some reservation”—which forces the reader to stop and reflect about what this means in relation to the story or poem as a whole Use of colloquial fillers in dialogue—“you know,” “enit”—which gives the characters a more human feel and the story an oral quality Use of surprise endings to sentences for comic or ironic effect—“or making a treaty”—which catches readers in their own assumptions and forces them to reconsider their normal perceptions Postmodernism Native American Style Postmodern era in American and English literature began around the 1960s; although postmodern elements are present in much earlier literature, the degree to which they permeate contemporary art sets this era apart from earlier ones. Two aspects of postmodernism influence many contemporary writers and artists. The first is a set of themes common to many postmodern texts: The lies of history, the revision of history The complexity of identity and the deconstruction of stereotypes Increasing ethnic heterogeneity Holocaust and apocalypse The cold war The influence of television and pop culture The influence of computers and other technologies Which of these themes might be of most concern to Native American writers? Second aspect of Postmodernism is aesthetics, a set of formal and stylistic elements that generally include: Experiments in form Blurring of genres (blending poetry, fiction and nonfiction in the same text, for example) Use of pastiche (a kind of cut-and-paste from other sources, such as other literary texts, songs, advertisements) Contradictory voices in a single text (so that multiple perspectives complicate our search for any simple “truth”) Fragmentation (with the text broken, disordered, and/or incomplete) “Open” forms (that demand that the reader actively work to construct meaning) Playful irony Overtly political intentions Make note of which of these stylistic elements you see in Alexie’s work. Theme Studies of Alexie Fathers Sports and Dancing Women Alcohol Crazy Horse and Buffalo Bill Identity Postmodern Aesthetics Terms to Know in Reading Alexie
