— Anonymous
One of the pieces I didn’t really understand when I first read it was, “The Toughest Indian in the World” by Sherman Alexie. When I read it the first time, it didn’t really make sense to me. An Indian leaving his village going to live in the modern world ends up having sex with another male Indian hitchhiker. What’s the point? I asked myself why would the author write something like this? He must have had some type of intentions, message, or central idea within the text.
When I read it again and wrote my discussion board post it started to make a little more sense to me. I got the idea that even though the Indian left his village he wanted to stay connected somehow and he did this by giving hitchhikers rides. His dad instilled in him since a young age to never give rides to white people and only fellow Indians. Although the Indian communities are tight-knit I realized the Indian didn’t feel at home there so that’s why he must have left. Although he left, I realized that he still felt a certain sense belonging because he grew up with it and it was hard for him to let go and acclimate to the real world. This is where I noticed the connection between him having sex with another man and the main idea of the story. He felt a lack of identity in the real world and thought that sleeping with this hitchhiker that was a fighter would bring him a sense of identity of at least guide him in the right direction. Once I made the connection, I was able to connect to the story because as people we grow up in one environment that we can’t choose, but once we’re old enough we have the decision to stay or leave. For those who leave and go to a different type of culture, it may be very hard to get used to. You feel alone because you can’t connect to others and end up being vulnerable to different people good or bad. Many people face this when they go to high school, college, new a job and meet a new group of people or move to a different part of the country or world. Although, the Indian’s change was extreme due to the environment of Indian culture comparing to the modern world the scene of him sleeping with another man was definitely an extreme way to demonstrate lack of identity. At first, I thought it was strange, but sometimes a writer has to go to a certain level or write something that may be controversary to spark conversation around a topic of importance. We all feel lonely and lost sometimes at some point in our life and its usually the people around us that either help us get past it or make it worse.
Overall, I do think recommend this text because it is short and to the point. Many stories have lots of detail that isn’t necessary so it’s nice to read a text that is simple and gets the point across. Although, I will be honest there was some sexual description in the scene that I thought was not relevant at all and didn’t have to be said. Again, everyone has the own opinion, but I believe the central idea could have been deduced without the explicit content.
