Sherman Alexie “The Business of Fancy Dancing” Bullying and Ostracizing
Introduction
The American Indians are the Native Americans, which is the origin of Sherman Alexie. These people were the first to inhabit America. However, the advent of colonization by the European colony changed the population.
The use of realism in Sherman Alexie’s works has made many people be identified with the subjects of the plays and comedies especially the manifestation of the Native American experience with regard to their resistance to the American Indian concept facets of the lives of these indigenous people. However, the Native Americans also influenced the cultural beliefs, modern literature and values. After the Europeans arrived to America, many of the tribes of the Native Americans perished due to diseases and other adverse artificial and natural conditions. The remnants of these tribes provide the traditional artistic styles, which provide a clear distinction between songs and narratives in the modern day world.
Ostracizing refers to the exclusion of a person from a particular group, and bullying refers to the mistreatment and intimidation of a person. The life of Alexie has been full of challenges since his childhood. Although he had undergone a brain surgery during his childhood years, he has made strides in his life. Despite this misfortune, he had mastered reading and writing skills by the time he attained the age of 3 years. Therefore, he developed a bias in reading. In this regard, he read many novels by different authors. This made his friends and associates envy him. They ostracized and bullied him because he possessed an extraordinary intellectual ability compared to these peers. Moreover, they always teased him with regard to his prowess in writing and reading. Alexie was forced to transfer to a school, constituting of only white students because he could not bear the bullying and ostracization by peers in his former school on account of his acumen.
“The Business of Fancy dancing” is a collection of Alexie’s collection of five stories and poems, which were published by Hanging Loose press center. One of the poems employs a strong figurative language, which boosts the narration of the poem. This encompasses the description of the fancy dance candidates who are hoping to win in the contest in order to be able to provide themselves with fuel for their vehicles on their journey to the next contest. Fancy dance is a traditional quick dance of the Native Americans. The figurative language used makes the narrative more interesting and livelier. Alexie creatively employs the traditional folk styles in the modern setting which boosts the narrative.
Moreover, the actors in the fancy dance business are acclimatized with the traditional styles of performance regardless of the modernism manifestation in American society. There has been a paradigm shift in the fancy dance business. This business has now turned out to be just for sustenance, unlike in the traditional scenario. In fact, only one fancy dancer, called Vernon Wild Shoe, guarantees securing of fancy dance prize in the future. Alexie was also bullied and abandoned by his own tribe partly owing to his unusually big head, intellectual power and many teeth. In fact, his good friend called Rowdy, literally stops communicating with him. Fortunately, he climbed the ladder and got access to many opportunities. He affirms that he is not interested in taking up a role as a director of a particular organization.
Alexie developed many skills over time and continued experimenting on many things. This provided him with a wealth of insight and expertise on how to approach various issues. This also boosted his creativity. He thoroughly explored the subjects of despair, racism, alcoholism, and poverty, given that he has already undergone bad experiences in the past with regard to these vices and misnomers. For instance, Alexie depicts how a myopic society will forever remain stagnated with regard to the advancement in the journalist career. He portrays himself as an ultimate human being, in light of those that told him that he would never become successful. His incorporation of the traditional style in the acting platform has elevated him to a class of his own in his career. All his books and comedies have been lauded the world over, given the dexterity of his work. Indeed, even the people who have always ostracized him have come to confess that he surpasses many in all his works.
The use of realism in his works has made many people identify with the subjects of the plays and comedies. This is more manifested in the Native American experience, with regard to their resistance to the American Indian concept. In addition, his use of the dark sarcasm in the change of the way the Americans viewed his culture, has made him overcome the discrimination and ostracization. He has also a unique ability of juxtaposing humor with a tragic event, which is a challenge to many writers and comedians. Moreover, he mixes conveniently real and fictitious people in his plays which make them more appealing to the audience.
This notwithstanding, he has still faced criticism, which has been construed to imply that he is against the Anglo-American culture. His study in the all-white school enabled him to adopt many other values of modern American culture. His innovativeness in writing was also a cause of his bullying and ostracization. In addition, he had a talent in writing poems, which became the envy of many people in the profession. The life of Alexie has shaped his advancement in his career development. His background has also brought a lot of suffering to him and his humble family. His father was an alcoholic while his mother was a clerk at a trading post in his home area. The problem of alcoholism in his family influenced him negatively, because his peers had a low opinion of the boy which, in its turn, provoked their bullying. Another tool of ostracization was his enlarged head. These attributes made his peers tease and sometimes bully him.
This implies that Alexie had a lot of difficulties throughout his life. His intelligence level was something which all his peers accepted as challenge, and envied very much. Having had a healthy complication during his childhood years, he was excluded from participating in some of the rites of passage activities conducted in his Indian community. This was a big disadvantage to him because the health problem was inevitable as it was a complication he was born with. Notwithstanding this, Alexie had a height fit for basketball. Indeed, having the height of 6 ft, he became a talented player in this game, in their reservation. When Alexie joined the white school, he surpassed everyone with his talent in playing basketball. He did very well in the game just as he did in his academics. Alexie had the ambition of pursuing medicine. However, he fainted several times while undertaking studies in an anatomy class owing to his health complication. This frustrated him to an extent he began to drink alcohol.
He was admitted to the Washington University, where he enrolled in literature classes to pursue his reading and writing dream. In fact, at one time he tells his siblings, “I was always the depressed guy in the basement. I’ve borrowed their sense of humor and made it darker and more deadly – a weapon of self-defense. Being funny you win hearts quicker; people laughing are more apt to listen,” (Alexie 45). Those, opposed to his works cite that his book earns the credit of many people due to just sympathy with regard to his past health status. However, this is hypothetical, given that he has not only been the author of the “Business of Fancy Dancing”, but has written many other literary works, which are equally enthralling. His life was full of challenges. For instance, he was epileptic until the age of seven.
Fortunately, he was not subjected to continuous brain surgeries. It is ironical that his health status paved way for his artistic lifestyle. In this regard, Alexie recollects, “There’s a surreal euphoria; the synapses are misfiring, so the memory banks are flooding your head. I’d get to feel like a superhero for a couple of minutes… The lights would pop, then I’d rise out of my body and be able to fly off anywhere I wanted…” ( Grassian 21).
Alexie’s family had a dark history of alcoholism. Many family members had died of this vice. His father was an alcoholic, though he played a pivotal role in the son’s career as a writer. This owes to the fact that his father had the passion for reading literature of all kind. In addition, his grandmother was a professional storyteller. Alexie benefited from the skills of story narration he acquired from his grandmother. This background enabled him to read and write at a tender age of three years. After he left his former school and joined the Reardan white school, he later learnt that his life was vulnerable to oppression; hence, he had to live it. On the other hand, the white school taught him that basketball is his favorite game and academics make his life brighter.
He says, “I could reach across boundaries and find things that joined us together: books and basketball,” (Alexie 51). Alexie abandoned drinking alcohol after his first book was published because this proved to him that he was destined for greater success in his career. “The Business of Fancy Dancing” features the reaction to various kinds of mistreatment. The tension Alexie has undergone for the sake of negatively depicting the Indian culture is compromising for him. This is because his career does not warrant conservatism, but it embraces dynamism and modernism. However, he portrays a good character of modesty. He does not care of being branded a traitor. In this regard, he says that, “I felt guilty, but I’ve forgiven myself, and most of my reservation has,” (Alexie 34). His woes were also because of the low literacy standards among the Native American people.
Alexie’s figure has been an inspiration to many people including his peers. This has given him a good chance of restructuring and transforming the obsolete Indian culture. Alexie asserts that his ostracization hurts them and works for his liberty. Therefore, he blames his society for not liberating. In his writer-up of “The Business of Fancy Dancing” he employs humor, which catches the readers’ attention. He makes use of language in an artistic manner. Being a renowned poet and a great performer, he managed to still almost every show and won praise from all and sundry. He was the champion of the American reservation lifestyle yet he shunned it for something better – civilization. Alexie has beat odds to become a champion in the poetry fraternity. In fact, he successfully won the World Poetry Award for four consecutive occasions. This was amazing for many people given that none had ever made such a feat in the past. In addition, he recites his poem to well selected audiences.
For instance, he performs at slam places where the subject of poverty, he emphasizes on, is well understood and relevant. Another interesting feature of his work is that he has extra-ordinary passion and vigor in almost all his performances, which make the audience connect to his message easier than to other presentations. His intellectual prowess was manifested when he won himself a scholarship to Jesuit Gonzaga University after completing his high school level education. His impaired health subjected him to ostracization, which made him transfer to Washington State University to pursue poetry and other relate subjects. His work highlights the despair and the abject poverty among the Native Americans. His books also elude sadness with regard to the sufferings of the local people in the area.
Having undergone a difficult life during his childhood, he provides guidance in the transformation of his folks from the Native America society. Alexie highlights the troubles that his folks have undergone in the fight for survival. He asserts that many of the indigenous people have resorted to alcoholism and other harmful activities in order to escape the reality of abuses they face from the white people. He has organized his acting in a manner that his characters find it easy to play on stage. This owes to the fancy dancing, which relieves tension and enables each actor to give his best in performance. His use of metaphor and pride in his acting portrays him as a great artist of all time.
Alexie’s advancement from poem writing to short story telling reveals much talent in him. He used life actors to convey the message in the plays in his bid to portray the Native American culture. This gave him an upper hand in his career. Alexie’s book was not superior, but it introduced the people, who were native American characters and made them complex and unique like any person. In addition, Alexie is ready to be reprimanded for enlightening his folk, the Native Americans. He does not sound didactic given that his timing is just perfect. According to Schulze, Sherman Alexie’s “Business of Fancy Dancing” serves to help a modern American to conceptualize the modern Indian experience in terms of the current literature (70). The book leaves the reader downhearted and deeply moved in the unfolding of the narration.
Alexie’s prose writing has advanced in skill and maturity; hence, it has become less concerned with the Native American scenario to Anglo audiences. Many scholars have described the manner in which the nine stories have pointed to the history of Alexie’s well-known territory of Native-white conflict, elaborating on any point of the cultural background of the American Indian. The folk he represents is described very well in detail. Many reviews of Alexie’s short story collection of “The Business of Fancy Dance” claim that they are the most successful stories in literature that do not confuse the readers in the entire American region with regard to the Indian language employed in the writing. Alexie’s literature also borders on his common subjects in modern ways. For instance, the narrative of the 14-year-old foster kid and his endeavors over time shows how Alexie unravels the proverbial war in a proficient manner (Alexie 47).
Brutal violence is witnessed between the whites and the Indians, and fathers and sons. This makes him fathom the meaning of a hero and a victim. He has also featured in the film industry. In fact, he wrote a piece of “The Business of Fancy Dancing” for the film. Moreover, this was the first Indian movie ever produced. This earned him many accolades in this field. This was also considered a prime studio release of that year. Indeed, Alexie’s writing and directing of the adaption of his own piece of The Business of Fancy-Dancing was no mean feat. Moreover, writing the full script for the film, based on Alexie’s short stories, was a manifest of some talent in the Native American society. The plot further follows a certain man by the name Victor who lives a hopeless life in a given city.
He has lost connection with his origin as a Native American. Victor starts a journey of discovering his original roots in order to accept and appreciate his current life. This work was widely released, and Alexie revealed to an interviewer his dreams for the filmmaking of India. He pinpointed an African-American executive as a role model for the filmmakers to emulate in the course of doing their noble jobs of film-production. This executive served as a counselor and a guide for the filmmakers because he was more interested in their success than the short-term returns of the business. He gave reference to the manner in which children strain in making their ends meet by use of obsolete camcorders. He gave more hope to the filmmakers than they had themselves.
Alexie’s work is seen to be more self-conscious and satirical than his prose presentation; though, he unravels many of the similar subjects in all his genres. He makes a mix of narratives, formal innovations, and lyrics. The interesting thing about his works is that his poem collections contained extended prose pieces. This was commendable because it showed his capability in managing many points of view and the other complicated subjects. He approached these subjects, especially the psychological aspects with much humor and skill, which earned him praises. This owed to the fact that the humor made his subject understandable because the audience could easily connect to the unfolding of events. His poetic collection comprises of poems composed in the form of sestina and villanelle.
Furthermore, effects such as the meta-textual features like footnotes were incorporated into the poems. The Native Americans provided a wide array of cultural values and aesthetics in the world of literature growth and development. However, their critics have come up with equally opposing views and values to counter and render useless the cultural values of these Indigenous people. The interesting thing is that the critics are only bias on race and color aspects in their resentments. Alexie was also subject to this discrimination but did not submit to these unreasonable hardline stances of the discriminative white people. He strove with fortitude in order to realize his dreams despite the adverse environment within which he operated. Literature provided a good channel for publicizing the social evils perpetuated by the whites against their counterparts, the indigenous people.
This medium also gave his folks the impetus to oppose the ill-intentioned systems of the white. He utilized his skills in enlightening the public with regard to the social affairs and their effects on the community. He employed narratives, comedies, films, books and articles to inspire and educate the society given his maverick behavior and wealthy past experience. Having passed all hurdles in his life he had an assurance that all the other people, especially his peers, will also overcome the excesses, racism, discrimination, and blackmail of the white people. The indigenous people, whom Alexie was a part of, were vulnerable to an extent that they had no hope of getting civilized and literate. In fact, the white denied the access to information in order for them to remain forever illiterate.
This was aimed at preventing them from forming solidarity movements so that their divide and rule slogan could work for them. Alexie’s innovativeness set precedence even among the white people. This increased the animosity from the white; hence, he had a difficult time in surviving in this environment. Indeed, the hardline stances of the white people were all depicted in almost all of the literature works of Alexie and other Indian writers. This enabled the people to know the vices to clamor in the community. Bullying was one of the mistreatments of the indigenous people. According to Schulze, an Indian boy was bullied by the white students because of too short hair and fake glasses (48). Furthermore, the teachers were also discriminative on the lines of race and color.
Conclusion
Sherman Alexie was a great poet and artist of all time. He had managed to set a mark on the scene as a competitive artist who completed his works based on the intuition of both education and entertainment. The experience he has undergone since his childhood to adulthood is humbling. In spite of bullying and ostracization, which was done to him, he overcame all. He forged ahead into realizing his dream, applying his intellectual power in literature. He portrayed the negative and a positive side of the Native American by use of the traditional aesthetics and values of his plays and comedies. Owing to this talented writer, the origin and the relevance of poetry in society have been established.
Works Cited
Alexie, Sherman. The Business of Fancydancing: Stories and Poems. Brooklyn, N.Y: Hanging
Loose Press, 2008. Print.
Alexie, Sherman, and Nancy J. Peterson. Conversations with Sherman Alexie. Jackson: niversity Press of Mississippi, 2009. Print.
Alexie, Sherman. The Business of Fancydancing: The Screenplay. Brooklyn, N.Y:
Loose Press, 2007. Print.
Grassian, Daniel. Understanding Sherman Alexie. Columbia, SC: Univ. of South Carolina Press,
2006. Print.
Schulze, Kerstin. Native American Culture and Identity in Sherman Alexie’s “smoke Signals”
and. S.l.: Grin Verlag Ohg, 2011. Print.
