How to Write the Great American Indian Novel by Sherman Alexie

Felice Aull — Mon, 03 Nov 2025 18:30:19 +0000

Sherman Alexie

In this poem of high irony, 21 stanzas of couplets brilliantly spin out stereotypes of Indigenous people promulgated by white American culture. Among the stereotypes that Alexie develops: the tragic Indian; Indian women as sexual objects for white men; Indian men secretly desirable to white women; Indians as violent, alcoholic, childlike, mystical,” and members of a “horse culture.” But in addition, Alexie emphasizes how American whites have co-opted Indian culture: “white people must carry an Indian deep inside themselves” until finally, “all of the white people will be Indians and all of the Indians will be ghosts.” The poem is a painful reminder of how the United States has at one and the same time decimated indigenous people and their culture while exploiting those people and that culture for its own gain. It is a commentary on stereotyping, loss of identity, and loss of a people.

Sherman Alexie is a poet, novelist, short story writer, essayist, and film writer. He is a Spokane/Coeur d’Alene Indigenous person and grew up on a reservation in Washington state. His work focuses on relationships between Indigenous people and white Americans and on life within a white power structure. Alexie’s writing is consistently humorous and ironic.

Read the Poem on poetryfoundation.org

How to Write the Great American Indian Novel
Sherman Alexie
https://fallsapart.com

Source The Summer of Black Widows, pp. 94-95
Publisher Hanging Loose Press
Edition 1996
Place Published Brooklyn, New York
Alternate Source Native American Songs and Poems, pp. 28-29
Alternate Publisher Dover Thrift Editions
Alternate Edition 1996
Alternate Editors Brian Swann
Place Published New York

A previous version of this review was published in the NYU Literature, Arts, and Medicine Database (Litmed).
Web image created by Medhum.org

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The Grasshopper by Anton Chekhov

Jack Coulehan — Sun, 11 May 2025 14:40:22 +0000

In this story, Dr. Dymov is an earnest and rather boring young physician, who is preoccupied with his patients and his research. Olga, his wife, craves the excitement and gaiety of the artistic life. She discovers a new lease on romance with Ryabovsky, a colorful landscape artist, who takes her on a Volga River cruise. As they spoon under the stars, Olga and her lover make light of her bumptious stay-at-home husband. After she returns from the cruise, Dymov forgives her infidelity, but in Olga’s mind, his forgiveness proves to be another strike against the poor slob, since she can’t stand his complaisant devotion. She runs back to Ryabovsky for a while, until he makes it clear that he is no longer interested in her.

Then one day Dymov develops diphtheria, evidently contracted by “sucking up mucus through a pipette from a boy with diphtheria. And what for? It was stupid… just from folly.” Dymov soon becomes seriously ill and then dies. Suddenly, Olga is overcome with guilt and grief. Too late, Olga realizes that her husband was a hero.

Chekhov based this story on the real-life love affair between his good friends Isaak Levitan, a well-known (and married) artist, and Lika Mizinova, a young unmarried teacher, who had for many years been infatuated with Chekhov while he toyed with her affection. In this interpretation, Chekhov bases the character of Dymov largely on himself, portrayed as a dedicated and disciplined worker who has no time to spare for frivolous romance. However, in reality, Chekhov had playful relationships with many women, but eschewed commitment until late in life.

Another way of looking at the story is the dramatic tension between practicality (science, public health, and social consciousness), as exemplified by Dymov; and emotion (art, adventure, romance), as exemplified by Ryabovsky. Olga at first chooses the latter, but Dymov’s death turns the tables. After he becomes a martyr to science, she suddenly finds him more interesting and mourns her loss. Was his death the result of a foolish mistake? Did her infidelity play a role, perhaps by distracting him while he was aspirating the pus? Or might Dymov have deliberately performed the foolish procedure, realizing that the infection would cause his death?

The Wife & Other Stories. The Tales of Chekhov. Volume 5, New York, The Ecco Press, 1985.
Translated from the Russian by Constance Garnett.
Shelby Foote (Ed.) Chekhov’s Later Short Stories. 1888-1903, New York, The Modern Library, 1999.
Translated from the Russian by Constance Garnett.

A previous version of this review was published in the NYU Literature, Arts, and Medicine Database (Litmed).

irony – medhum.org

How to Write the Great American Indian Novel by Sherman Alexie

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