Indian Education

Indian Education by Sherman Alexie is the story of a little boy growing as told through his progression through grade school.  In each grade the boy learns a different lesson about what it means to be different.  Interestingly his story not only reveals the difference between white and Indian but also between Indian and Indian.  As a disassociated member of each group the narrator is provided with a unique opportunity to provide insights into both.

For the reader it would be most obvious that the narrator was an outsider in white society from his earliest years of education.  Beginning with the ugly redheaded second grade teacher Betty Towle the narrator, Victor, was at odds with white authority.  It was not until high school that he begins to go with the flow of white conventionalism but that is not enough to make him an honorary member of white society.  Despite his apparent acceptance through scholastic achievement and basketball the narrator is still painfully aware that he is different.  While white girls force themselves to vomit in the bathroom and whisper nervously about anorexia the narrator and his family opened canned beef that even dogs wouldn’t eat and were happy to have food.  And it is not only the narrator who has not forgotten he is Indian the teachers also remember in the back of their mind intending to prevent him from spreading his bad Indian influence.  Like the teacher at the school dance.  The teacher knows all about those Indian kids and their drinking.  The narrator is part of this society and at the same time is not.  He is always evaluating the circumstances surrounding him and his actions in order to remain accepted by this group.

It may be more difficult for the reader to pick up on the divided between the narrator and his people but it began first.  It was in the first grade when the other Indian boys began to pick on the narrator.  The author writes “the other Indian boys chased me from one corner of the playground to the other …they stole my glasses and through them over my head … until someone tripped me and sent me falling again”.  Encounters like this were the beginning of the divided between the narrator and the other Indian boys.  As the children grew up there priorities diverged.  While the other boys remained on the reservation the narrator began attending high school in a farm town.  The narrator does not specifically state why he does this but it may have been at the encouragement of his fourth grade teacher Mr. Schluter.  By interacting and making friends with white society the narrator has solidified the divided between himself and the reservation.  In both the white high school and the reservation Victor the narrator is both a distant observer and a participant in events.  He interacts but is never truly trusted.  In the white high school he is accepted but no one ever forgets that narrator is different an Indian.  On the reservation he was initially ostracized because of his appearance, which may have been considered to white, and then later for willing choosing to interact with whites.

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While reading August Wilson’s The Piano Lesson I was struck by the hazy portrayal of the death of Bernice’s husband Crawley.  While reading this passage it becomes obvious that Boy Willie played a large role in the death of Crawley but the actual circumstances are unknown. The only other person present was Lymon, who at best is a simple and unreliable source of information and who at worst does not care to reveal the truth. Bernice seems to believe that Boy Willie I the direct cause of her husband’s death, not that he directly pulled the trigger but that he might as well have since he knowingly put her husband into a volatile situation. Even Crawleys killer is uncertain, the men knew that they were pilfering extra wood from what they were cutting, and if Crawley knew that they were stealing and knowingly brought a gun with him as Boy Willie claims then he knew what situation he was putting himself into. If that is the case then to say his death was Boy Willies fault would be unfair but if Boy Willie led Crawley to believe that the wood was his and that they had to move it before it was stolen, as Bernice claims, then he really could be seen as the reason for Crawley’s death.

Boy Willie is a straight forward kind of guy, to the point of being rude and abrasive. When he wants something he comes right out and says it. When he first arrives at Doaker and Bernieces’ residence he announces why he is there, and even explains why he wants the money, in great detail. He explains repeatedly to anyone who will listen how he intends to purchase the Sutter land and that the piano is doing Berniece no good just sitting in her front room. To his credit Boy Willie is not a liar, everything he says is true from his point of view, and as such I believe that he is a mostly reliable narrator. You must understand that everything he says may not happen exactly the way he says it did, but Boy Willie is not interested in embellishing the story. When he says that Crawley brought a gun with him to move the wood it is my humble opinion that Crawley did bring a gun and even have fired the first shot as Boy Willie tells it.

The entire tale is hinging on whether or not Crawley shot at someone he believed to be attempting to steal their already stolen wood, or if he shot at someone thinking the wood rightfully belonged to Lymon and Boy Willie. It really doesn’t even matter who killed him, it matters who Boy Willie led him to believe he was working against. There is also the looming question of who really shot Crawley.  Boy Willie has been truthful up until now, why would he start to lie now. The poor bereaved woman does not care who killed her husband, she cares that her brother talked her husband into doing something illegal, possibly by telling him it was legal and from her point of view got him killed. If Boy Willie is to be believed though Crawley was fully aware of the circumstances of the wood transportation, and that was why he brought the gun, and fired at their unknown antagonist. He may even have fired thinking to scare off the other men who had come to move the wood, either way it hardly matters to Berniece, she just wants her husband back and blames Boy Willie for his death.