Sherman Alexi "Class" is a story about a man who tries to return to his roots but then finds he has outgrown them. In the beginning, I thought he was rather a shallow person. He uses his Indian heritage to impress women. Then he marries Susan whom he seems to like very much. He tolerates her infidelity because he wants to keep her. But when tragedy comes, and he sees his wife suffering, and realizes she's been pretending all along to love him, he runs from her and attempts to experience "his people," native Americans at a seedy bar. What he learns is that they no longer will accept him because he has moved up in class.

The story makes it seem like a person can easily change their class just by working hard and "fighting" their way up. I'm not so sure it is that easy to cross class lines. A person can get an education and make a lot of money, but class is more than that. In a way, class is an unreal thing in the sense that it is purely a mental construct. We believe in class and talk about it and place ourselves within the so-called class structure. Once we accept that we are members of a certain class, it becomes deeply embedded in our consciousness and is difficult to change because it becomes part of who we think we are. We learn to behave in a way that coincides with the class we think we are.

It may be just as difficult to move downward as upward. I know a woman who moved to a small farm town where the people all spoke a rural dialect. Because she spoke Standard English, the townspeople didn't trust her. They thought she was showing off and trying to lord it over them. Perhaps they never would have accepted her, except she married a man from the town. They trusted him, so they accepted her. Although she said she tried, she was unable to speak as they did, so she never did really fit in. I imagine that's how Running Eagle feels, like he just doesn't quite belong.