"Toughest Indian In the World"

“The Toughest Indian in the World” by Sherman Alexie, the author uses metaphors such as salmon and the “toughest indian in the world” (29). Alexie uses the salmon when the narrator is talking about his dad. He says that his “father never taught [him] about hope” (21). I think what the narrator’s father was trying to say was that they can’t show hope because that makes them vulnerable if they are let down.  It’s better to be tough and strong than emotionally weak. That’s where the “toughest indian in the world” comes in because even though the author uses the phrase to describe the actual fighters, I think the narrator could very well be “the toughest indian in the world” because he was taught to not be emotionally fragile. He was always taught that he had to be tougher than the white men in the white world he lives in. He learned, from his father, “to be silent in the presence of white people” because they wanted them just to go away (22). I think the whole story has to do with the fact that the Indians live in a white world where they have to assimilate to white customs. The whole point of the story is that the narrator feels lost in the white world. At the end, when he “[traveled] upriver toward the place where [he] was born…”, he’s finding his way back to his culture (34).

Alexie, Sherman. The Toughest Indian in the World. First Edition. New York: Grove/Atlantic, Inc., 2000. 21-34. Print.