Superman the Story \"Superman and Me\" Revolves

Superman

The story "Superman and me" revolves around the subject of reading and books, however, it lacks a clear beginning and ending. The author emphasizes on how his love for books developed and what influenced him to start reading. In midst of talking about his love for books, the author introduces another problem as well. The problem revolves around the bad living conditions and social conditions of the Indians living on the reservation. A transition is made by the author from books to the living conditions of Indians. Unfortunately, the transition made isn't smooth enough and in the middle of the story, it appears that the author is trying to carry on with two story lines.

There is quite a details about the type of books Sherman liked reading. The different types of books further go on depict his love and admiration for reading books as well. The argument that the author is trying to give is how reading was not an important activity in the lives of the Indians. Again and again, emphasis is giving to reading and how the author made use of anything he could read. He stresses that no one taught him to read but he learned all by himself. This self struggle of learning how to read and going on to equate the non-Indian children could be seen as the main problem of the book. However, as mentioned earlier, there is no clear presentation of problem and a solution.

Instead of having a more story like touch to it, the author more or less describes his sentiments and things he liked to read. He hasn't given much stress to the how he managed to struggle and what problems he faced. A sudden shift is seen from his school life to the time when he was finally become learned enough. There is no mention of accomplishments or the struggles along the way. The transition is so quick that the story finishes and the reader is wondering what happened?

Mixed with the problem of illiteracy and lack of resources, the bad living conditions of the Indians are also presented. The author talks about the problems his mother and father have to face. The mention of the living and the economic problems is very subtle and linked to the book reading as well. The part about linking paragraphs to everyday thing did make use of smart logic. However, the correlations did go on far and will be discussed further below. The author seems to talk very emotionally when he states that the words felt a common purpose. It hints at an underlying inferiority complex and how considers himself as an outsider. This correlation blends in smoothly with the Indian and non-Indian comparison that the author makes later on. Talking about paragraphs, the author jumps to superman and talks about how used to read the comic strips

This part about superman is not how long and detailed as it should have been judging from the title. The title being Superman and me makes the reader believe that the story will revolve around the story of Superman. However, the author merely discusses the comic strip in one part of the story and then goes on to talk about other books. There is one paragraph in the story which is third person and that really disrupts the flow of the story. Even though it disrupts the flow, it clearly tells about how the author liked to talk in third person at times.

This leads on to other problems that the author faced during his childhood. The fact that the author is quite aware of his abilities and accomplishments is quite prominent in this story. He knows that he is better and smarter than the other children. He talks about the other kids struggled with reading and how the author was far ahead of the other children in class. Over here, the author hints at his despise for the non-Indians. He clearly tells that the perceptions he has about non-Indians and how they detrimental to the Indians at large. From his class room problems, the author goes on to talk about how went on to read anything he could find

As mentioned earlier, there is no clear-cut struggle mentioned. Maybe the author emphasizing on his skills and passion for reading are a way of describing the journey that he had to talk. There is a sudden shift from describing reading items to becoming a teacher. Very abruptly, the author also mentions that he wanted to be a pediatrician. This fact is just touched upon very light and the author moves on forward without even talking about it. All throughout the story when the author is describing his living conditions and his love for books, there is never a mention of becoming a doctor. Furthermore, even when the transition is made from him being fond of books and eventually becoming a teacher, there is no problem of confusion of choice of careers presented. This statement not only messed up the flow of the story but also goes on to confuse the reader.

The part where the author talks about the devotion for books, he makes a link between books and his family. There is correlation developed between the love for the person's father and the love of books. That could be an example of Pathos where the author uses emotional appeal. Another emotional appeal is when he talks about how the Indians had to submit to the Non-Indians. Here the author is trying to show that he doesn't want to be one of the people who are ruled over by another group of people.