Zhi Lu
Professor McCall
ENGL101MD016
28 September 2017 How Can You Succeed?
Have you ever encountered a situation like when a friend or a family member told you you can’t do something, because it is impossible for you to succeed? How many of us will value their opinions and choose to not do it? And how many of us will choose the opposite path and become successful? Questions like these, prompted the writing of the essays “Superman and Me” by Sherman Alexie, and Junot Diaz’s “The Dreamer.” People in these similar circumstances may react in a totally different ways, leading to a very different outcomes. After reading “Superman and Me” and “The Dreamer” scrupulously, one will find that these …show more content…
In “Superman and Me,” Alexie tells his journey of getting education in a non-Indian world. Alexie was born and raised on the Indian Reservation in eastern Washington state, poor by all standards, but his father spent most of their money on books, his father’s deep passion for books inspired Alexie to fall in love with books and later become a writer. Alexie was very brilliant, for example, he started to read comic books at age of three and taught himself the usage of paragraphs. He began to read “Grapes of Wrath” in kindergarten while other children struggled with “Dick and Jane.” By our modern standards, he might have been called a genius but because he is from Indian reservation people expected him to be stupid, silent and submissive. In the classroom, Alexie noticed Indian children are very ingenious but some of them refused to try and learn and some of them have already given up their hopes on themselves. Alexie states, “I was smart. I am arrogant. I am lucky. I am trying to save our lives” (2), this quote sends a powerful message to the reader that Indian children were stereotypically supposed to fail in the classroom and fail in life, but Alexie was one of the few not to live up to those expectations, he ignores his classmate’s mocking, reads anything possible and eventually becomes a successful writer. Alexie dragged himself from the bottom, he escaped the stereotype and accomplished the impossible. Alexie also …show more content…
Like Diaz’s mother, I moved to United States about six years ago, many of my Chinese friends did not believe I can learn English because I was not a smart kid growing up. In the first week of school, I was assigned to sit at the back of the classroom, I felt the sensation of being in hell, time went so slow that every second felt like year. The lack of confidence and inability to speak in English tortured me both spiritually and physically, I felt like was just staring at the teacher, who was writing “symbols” on the blackboard, casting “ancient spells” to us. I was literally drawing down the cursive symbols off the board and spending hours and hours deciphering the meaning of every word. The first year was tough but it gets better as time goes by. During these years I knew my Chinese friends were wrong, but at the same time I was afraid that they turn out to be right, so I decided to believe in myself, ignore their laughters and climb the ladder to master English, I know success is not going be easy but as long as I faith, anything is
Professor McCall
ENGL101MD016
28 September 2017 How Can You Succeed?
Have you ever encountered a situation like when a friend or a family member told you you can’t do something, because it is impossible for you to succeed? How many of us will value their opinions and choose to not do it? And how many of us will choose the opposite path and become successful? Questions like these, prompted the writing of the essays “Superman and Me” by Sherman Alexie, and Junot Diaz’s “The Dreamer.” People in these similar circumstances may react in a totally different ways, leading to a very different outcomes. After reading “Superman and Me” and “The Dreamer” scrupulously, one will find that these …show more content…
In “Superman and Me,” Alexie tells his journey of getting education in a non-Indian world. Alexie was born and raised on the Indian Reservation in eastern Washington state, poor by all standards, but his father spent most of their money on books, his father’s deep passion for books inspired Alexie to fall in love with books and later become a writer. Alexie was very brilliant, for example, he started to read comic books at age of three and taught himself the usage of paragraphs. He began to read “Grapes of Wrath” in kindergarten while other children struggled with “Dick and Jane.” By our modern standards, he might have been called a genius but because he is from Indian reservation people expected him to be stupid, silent and submissive. In the classroom, Alexie noticed Indian children are very ingenious but some of them refused to try and learn and some of them have already given up their hopes on themselves. Alexie states, “I was smart. I am arrogant. I am lucky. I am trying to save our lives” (2), this quote sends a powerful message to the reader that Indian children were stereotypically supposed to fail in the classroom and fail in life, but Alexie was one of the few not to live up to those expectations, he ignores his classmate’s mocking, reads anything possible and eventually becomes a successful writer. Alexie dragged himself from the bottom, he escaped the stereotype and accomplished the impossible. Alexie also …show more content…
Like Diaz’s mother, I moved to United States about six years ago, many of my Chinese friends did not believe I can learn English because I was not a smart kid growing up. In the first week of school, I was assigned to sit at the back of the classroom, I felt the sensation of being in hell, time went so slow that every second felt like year. The lack of confidence and inability to speak in English tortured me both spiritually and physically, I felt like was just staring at the teacher, who was writing “symbols” on the blackboard, casting “ancient spells” to us. I was literally drawing down the cursive symbols off the board and spending hours and hours deciphering the meaning of every word. The first year was tough but it gets better as time goes by. During these years I knew my Chinese friends were wrong, but at the same time I was afraid that they turn out to be right, so I decided to believe in myself, ignore their laughters and climb the ladder to master English, I know success is not going be easy but as long as I faith, anything is