Border-Crossing Stories: Alexie, Gautier, Silko

Throughout this last unit there were three main stories that related together through crossing boundaries All of these stories rap around the fact that all the main characters were trying to find out who they were or their identity, Within all of these stories every character must leave what they are used to and make a life change. In the book “The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian,” by Sherman Alexie, the main character Arnold has an identity crisis and has to leave his reservation where he lives> where his friends are, and where he attends school.

In the short story “Dance for Me,” by Gautier, a young girl leaves her old school and town for a better opportunity of learning. In the final story “Yellow Woman,” by Silko, a woman with a husband and children goes on a “spirit walk” to try and discover if the life she is living is actually meant for her or not. She ends up being part of an ancient legend that her grandfather used to tell stories about before he passed away.

All of these stories are also involving stereotypes and segregation. In the book “The Absolutely True Story of a Part Time Indian,” Arnold leaves what his home and best friend because he believes that he will have more and better opportunities at a school that is about twenty minutes away from the reservation that he lives on When he arrives at his new school he finds out that he is the only Indian that was in the school and that the school is not at all diversei He also realizes that these kids come from wealthy families and it shows that he obviously does not.

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This does not stop Arnold from excelling, finding friends, and discovering his true self. In the short story “Dance for Me,” the narrator tells us a story of how she decided that moving schools would be most academically beneficial to her. The same thing that happened to Arnold happened to her as well, She was in this very ritzy school that even had school uniforms and she was by herself in the sense that there were no other black kids.

In the story she was from a poorer area meaning that the other kids stereotyped her; thinking that she could dance and that she would know exactly where to get drugs. In “Yellow Woman” the narrator wakes up next to a man, who she later learns is named Silva, and he keeps calling her Yellow Woman, She insists that she is not this so called Yellow Woman; all she can think about when he continues to call her this is a story that her grandfather used to tell her when she was young The story was about a woman that goes off away from her family and has an affair with a mysterious man, She think that this is impossible and could have not happened to her because it was just some ancient legend that her grandfather used to telli Throughout the story she contemplates if the life that she has with her family is really what she wants and if she should even go back after what she did.

In the book “The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian,” Sherman Alexie shows crossing boarders by completely changing his surroundings, Sherman had the main character, Arnold, he begins by describing how his home life is not very nice and that Arnold wants a better life He lives on an Indian reservation and his parents are alcoholics just like majority of the parents that live there. The school that he attends is very poor and uses outdated material; so he goes to his parents and tells them that he would like to go to a school about twenty miles away that offers better up to date academics. Arnold crosses many different boundaries throughout the entire book The first major boundary is that Arnold tells his best friend, Rowdy, that he is going to Reardan High School instead of Welpinit, meaning he‘ll be leaving the reservation. No one ever leaves the reservation for an extended amount of time.

The next major boundary that he crosses is actually committing to this new school. He is different and it is very prevalent that he is a poor kid that isn‘t from around there Another major boundary that he crosses is joining the basketball team because he knows that they will play is old school and his friend Rowdy will be there playing against him. With these boundaries, along with others, crossed Arnold was able to find out that he real y needed to leave the reservation. He needed a changed because he knew that if he stayed any longer he would end up like his parents and he would do nothing with his life. In the S1011 story, “Dance for Me,” Gautier shows crossing boundaries in a similar way to the way that Sherman Alexie does, but she shows more stereotypes In “Dance for Me” a young girl seeks the opportunity to better herself and by doing this she moves to a rich private school.

The school that she moves to is not diverse what so ever, She is one of the only students there that is not white ant so this brings along stereotypes about her. The kids at her knew school think that because she is rom poorer area, and that she is black, that she can do all these like dance, get drugs, and has done drugs. When in all actuality the only dance move that she knows is the running man, ste has never gotten any drugs let alone taken any of them. When she is invited to a party at one o fthe other kid’s houses they are her to bring the weed, because she knows where it would be. She ends up having to go to a richer area than her own to by the drugs because she had no idea where to get it.

Gautier is telling us that this girl moved to a different school so that she could be herself. She wanted to find herself because she could not before. She needed a change and she needed to be able to widen her horizon, Towards the end of the story she realizes that she does not need to be what these other people want her to be, she now knows that she can be whatever she wants. The biggest boundary that was crossed here was that her moving somewhere that she could f ind her identity and realize that the world did not own her. This was also an important lesson she had to learn because without it she would have still followed the norm doing what these other kids thought that she should do.