Sherman Alexie Poem Analysis

This poem expresses the anger and frustration of Sherman Alexie, Native-American who met a lady that he refers to as a “white woman”(line 1). His frustration and anger starts when she comments about the age of the house they see, and continues when she mentions how Don Henley saved Walden. Alexie expresses his state of mind with anger, frustration and his dogmatic opinion through Don Henley, fouls language
His state of mind is anger and seeing white people as enemies. Sherman Alexie appears to wish other races would leave his country. He thinks that his biggest challenge is dealing with “the enemy”(line 37). He thinks Native Americans have more history than white people, but that white people honor their history more than they should, which …show more content…
He expressed his anger through the statement: “Architecture is 15,000 years older than the corners of the house that sits museumed on the hill”(lines 8-10). He also expressed his frustration through Walden Pond. The lady was amused with “Walden Pond”, but he was furious because as he says: “There are five Walden Ponds on my little reservation out West and at least a hundred more sounding Spokane city”(lines 14-16). This tells us how much anger he had, not just for this lady, but for the “white, modern” history and also his thought that Native American history was more of importance than the white woman’s history. His frustration comes out when he starts using fouling language, he says:“If Don Henley’s brothers and sisters and mothers and father hadn’t come here in the first place then nothing would need to be saved” (lines 23-25). He also expresses his frustration through fouling language. “I don’t give a sh*t about Walden”(lines 18-19) and “I’m tired of hearing about Don-f*cking Henley saving it” (line 22). However none of the stuff he didn’t say out loud, instead he kept it inside of