John Smith In Sherman Alexie's Indian Killer
Analysis of Sherman Alexie's novel. Centers on character of John Smith, a man caught between two worlds: the Indian and the White and not at home in either world. Issue of John's intolerance; his suffering, alientation and violence. Negative impact of intolerance of white society and co-workers. Author's message.
From the Paper:
"John Smith, the protagonist of Sherman Alexie's novel Indian Killer, is a man caught between the white world and the Indian world, and at home in neither. He is a full-blooded Native American Indian, but was raised by whites, and knows little about his Indian roots. As a result of these circumstances, and the fact that he is a man who appears to be an Indian in a nation of prejudice against Indians, he is a man without …show more content…
This leads to a good deal of anti-Indian rhetoric and some street violence, both white against Indian and Indian against white. The killer is John Smith, an Indian without a tribe, which alone sets him apart from both groups. His name is clearly an ironic reference to the white captain famous for the story of Pocahantas. John is caught between the two cultures, for while he is Indian by birth, he is Adopted by a white couple. He rapidly slips into a delusional fantasy life in which he is the Native American hero able to right all the wrongs inflicted on Native Americans by European settlers and all those who …show more content…
The killer singing and dancing as more and more join in, and Marie's cryptic comment: "Indians are dancing now, and I don't think they are going to stop"(418), all lead me to believe that just as the Indians where planning the ghost dance in 1890 and stopped by the U.S. Army, it is happening now, and working. The belief of the Ghost Dance was that an Indian Messiah would then come, and restore the land to the Native Americans who originally inhabited it by destroying the white man. Perhaps by people starting to perform this ceremony, this Indian Messiah is the one who transforms to the killer and takes a white man's life, and slowly removes the white man from this land. As Marie says to Dr. Faulkner and Dr. Mather: "If the Ghost Dance had worked, you wouldn't be here. You'd be
From the Paper:
"John Smith, the protagonist of Sherman Alexie's novel Indian Killer, is a man caught between the white world and the Indian world, and at home in neither. He is a full-blooded Native American Indian, but was raised by whites, and knows little about his Indian roots. As a result of these circumstances, and the fact that he is a man who appears to be an Indian in a nation of prejudice against Indians, he is a man without …show more content…
This leads to a good deal of anti-Indian rhetoric and some street violence, both white against Indian and Indian against white. The killer is John Smith, an Indian without a tribe, which alone sets him apart from both groups. His name is clearly an ironic reference to the white captain famous for the story of Pocahantas. John is caught between the two cultures, for while he is Indian by birth, he is Adopted by a white couple. He rapidly slips into a delusional fantasy life in which he is the Native American hero able to right all the wrongs inflicted on Native Americans by European settlers and all those who …show more content…
The killer singing and dancing as more and more join in, and Marie's cryptic comment: "Indians are dancing now, and I don't think they are going to stop"(418), all lead me to believe that just as the Indians where planning the ghost dance in 1890 and stopped by the U.S. Army, it is happening now, and working. The belief of the Ghost Dance was that an Indian Messiah would then come, and restore the land to the Native Americans who originally inhabited it by destroying the white man. Perhaps by people starting to perform this ceremony, this Indian Messiah is the one who transforms to the killer and takes a white man's life, and slowly removes the white man from this land. As Marie says to Dr. Faulkner and Dr. Mather: "If the Ghost Dance had worked, you wouldn't be here. You'd be