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Elijah Williams

Instructor Haak

English 1510

7 February 2018

Comparative Analysis

Up until his time in prison, Malcolm X considered himself the smartest and most

articulate hustler on the street. With only an 8th grade education, he was able to influence many

through his speaking and writing abilities. These abilities, however, came from the seven years

he spent in prison (insert citation). In his written narrative “Learning to Read”, Malcolm X

displays the dedication he gave to improving his penmanship, writing, and vocabulary and how it

all changed his idea of what getting an education meant and the importance of one. Unlike

Malcolm X, Sherman Alexie was always interested in learning more yet was condemned for

being intelligent by his peers. In Sherman Alexie’s “Superman and Me”, the reader is given the

opportunity to see how it was for Alexie growing up. The narrative explores the early life of

Sherman Alexie and how his love for books impacted his future and his thoughts on education as

well. Both Sherman Alexie and Malcolm X use their personal experiences as a catalyst for others

to understand how important an education is and the endless limits that await them upon their

own journey to becoming literate.

In “Superman and Me” and “Learning to Read”, both individuals did what was contrary

to the popular behavior and expectations of them based on their situation. As a result, they were

prompted to explore with their own education and see things as a bigger picture. In “Superman

and Me”, Alexie gives an example of what is what like to go to school on the reservation. He

explains how his fellow Spokane Indians saw him as a threat because he considered himself
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intelligent and wouldn’t bow down to the low standards set for all individuals within the

reservation, “A smart Indian is a dangerous person, widely feared and ridiculed by Indian and

non-Indians alike” (page 3) he says. He doesn’t place all the blame on own people instead, he

explains how the expectation or lack thereof that are set for the American Indians by society

have hindered his people too. “As Indian children, we were expected to fail in the non-Indian

world. Those who failed were ceremonially accepted by the other Indians and appropriately

pitied by the non-Indians.” (page 3). For Sherman Alexie, failing was not an option so. His

beliefs were far from others within the reservation and it set him apart. In “Learning to Read”,

Malcolm X completely flips the script on the preconceived notion of an individual’s life going to

waste when imprisoned. Instead, he uses the time to focus on his own literacy, improve his

penmanship and expand his vocabulary. “… in every free moment I had, if I was not reading in

the library, I was reading on my bunk. You couldn’t have gotten me out of books with a wedge”

(page 168). Neither Malcolm X nor Sherman Alexie was going to be held down by the popular

belief of how they should act or what they should do, they became more determined to increase

their knowledge by reading more books.

Although they didn’t have the same accessibility to resources and books, with Malcolm

having a library in the Norfolk’s Prison and the college professors and Sherman Alexie having

whatever books his father brought home, they both used their resources to its maximum capacity.

For Sherman Alexie, reading books was his only way to survive and have a possibility to leave

the reservation. “I was lucky. I read books late into the night, until I could barely keep my eyes

open” (page 3). In that same paragraph, he lists off multiple things that he would read, things

such as borrowed books from the library but also odd things like the back of cereal boxes or

auto-repair manuals. Alexie also realizes that in order for him to be able to be successful outside
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of the reservation he had to have knowledge of things outside of that taught by his fellow native

Americans which adds on to a reason for Alexie to read everything he could get his hands on.

His father also helped his progression, being described as “an avid reader of westerns, spy

thrillers, murder mysteries, gangster epics, basketball player biographies and anything else he

could find.” Each piece of writing gave him a different view of literature and allowed for the

expansion of his mind.

In Malcolm X’s case, it was impossible for him to max out his use for the prison library,

however, because he was focused on a specific topic of learning he was able to maximize his

resources regarding that topic. During the time when Malcolm X was sent to prison, 1946, the

civil rights movement was starting to emerge. Malcolm X was a man of strong belief and a

mentee to Elijah Muhammad, who’s teachings spread all throughout the United States. The

teachings focused on the idea that history books were only catered towards the history of whites

and left out important information about the history of people of color. Malcolm X says “The

teaching of Mr. Muhammad stressed how history had been “whitened” when white men had

written history books, the black man had simply been left out” (page 169). The ideology stuck

with Malcolm X and during his time in prison began to look deeper into the history and culture

of African American and people of color. Throughout the second half of his narrative, Malcolm

X gives specific examples of books about the history of African Americans or people of color.

He explains how he became more aware of what slavery was “I never will forget how shocked I

was when I began reading about slavery’s total horror” (page 171). All of the books he read

opened his eyes to the horror that different people of color had to endure because of actions

made by Europeans. But, it also gave him a new perspective on history and how he perceives it.
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Through self-educating themselves and reading as much as possible, both Sherman

Alexie and Malcolm X understood the importance of being literate and made it a priority to help

inform the younger generations on being both literate and educated. In “Superman and Me”,

Sherman Alexie’s personal experience as a young Native American within America makes him

want to come back and teach the importance of being literate but also to use his story as a

testimony for the others. Alexie talks about visiting schools and classrooms on Native American

reservations. He sees the kids who he has reached within the classroom because of how intently

they are paying attention to him but he also notices those who have already shut him out,

comparing those students to “locked doors” and himself to someone who is trying to break down

those doors. Without stop he continues to try to educate them, “Books, I say to them, Books, I

say” (page 4). Also, Alexie says that the reason he has become a writer is to be able to show the

Indian kids how to write because it was not taught him as a young boy. Although it is a

challenge, Alexie isn’t going to give up without a fight, he ends the narrative saying “I am smart.

I am arrogant. I am lucky. I am trying to save our lives” (page 4). Like Alexie, Malcolm X was

focused on educating anyone who was willing to listen to what he had to say. However, he was

far more direct, using specific examples from different books to create controversy between

these books and what history books tend to say. During Malcolm X’s lifetime, the civil rights

movement was the hot topic within America and being one of the faces of this movement

allowed Malcolm X to be an inspiration to many others. With this written narrative of his

experience in prison and what he has learned since Malcolm X uses it to focus on improving the

knowledge of African Americans on their history so that they were more aware. Self-educating

himself as a black man in America helped him learn a more in-depth version of the oppression

African Americans have experienced for years and from his experience he is trying to do the
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same for others. “My homemade education gave me, with every additional book that I read, a

little bit more sensitivity to the deafness, dumbness, and blindness that was afflicting the black

race in America” (page 174). In addition, he understood the importance of human rights and that

without knowing your human right you can’t have civil rights, which is what he was fighting for.

On the last page of the narrative, Malcolm X says “Books. You will never catch me with a free

fifteen minutes in which I’m not studying something I feel might be able to help the black man

(page 174). He was always trying to help the African American people educate themselves and it

is shown very clearly through this comment.

Neither author directly addresses the topic of mistreatment and oppression that people of

color have faced within America, they instead used their life stories to shed light on the

mistreatment but also their testimony. From their testimonies, they hope that others will follow in

their footsteps to become more educated and helped other generations to get out of the never-

ending circle that many are stuck in.

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Works Cited

- The Estate of Malcolm X. Malcolm X. 2015. 2018. <http://malcolmx.com/>

- "Saved" from The Autobiography of Malcolm X by Malcolm X as told to Alex Haley.

Copyright 1964 by Alex Haley and Malcolm X. Copyright 1965 by Alex Haley and Betty

Shabazz. Used by permission of Ballantine Books, and imprint of Random House, a division of

Penguin Random House LLC. All rights reserved.

- Alexie, Sherman. "The Joy of Reading and Writing: Superman and Me." The Most

Wonderful Books: Writers on Discovering the Pleasures of Reading. Minneapolis: Milkweed

Editions, 1997. 3-6. Print. Reprinted with the author's permission.

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Reflective Statement

For the comparative analysis, at first I struggled with getting down the intro paragraph. It was

something that I had struggled with in the critical analysis paper but I looked back at the last

paper and saw what I did and tried to replicate that. With the introduction however, I felt that I

didn’t summarize enough but I left it alone because I usually have a problem with summarizing

too much instead of analyzing. The whole structure of my essay was supposed to go back and

forth between both “Superman and Me” and “Learning to Read”. I started with the 5 Analytical

Moves worksheet which really helped me break down what I thought was important and ranking

them in order. From there I tried to work on the basic ideas that each writer was trying to cover

within their paper and took time to compare each part of the essay. When comparing, I split the

essays into a couple sections based on comparison. The first section was comparing how both

Sherman Alexie and Malcolm X were not people to go by the standards and always expected

more from themselves, for Malcolm X the ideal that going to jail wasted one’s life was

something that I felt throughout the whole narrative he made sure to address as not being true.

Sherman Alexie was not one who would comply to the simple standards given to the Native

Americans on his reservation. He was always looking for ways to better educate himself and kept

himself busy with his readings. Next I compared each individuals and their goal to educate

themselves by using the resources they had to the best ability that they could. Malcolm X I feel

had a larger variety to resources since he had a library and other highly educated individuals to

talk to on a regular basis however, because he was more focused on the African American

history within the United States and throughout time, he limited himself on what he would read.

For Sherman Alexie, he would read anything which helped increase his vocabulary and made
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him more well-rounded when it came to school, especially since he a white teacher on the

reservation. Lastly, I said that person used what information they had acquired to try to help

educate the next generation and make them more aware of the importance of being literate and

educated. This idea for both authors was really two fold I felt, one because they were simply

trying to help their own people become more aware while also helping white people and

whoever else was reading see how they were able to overcome their situations and become the

influential person that they are and were to this day. Overall, I felt that the essay went well, I

always seem to have a structure but in the middle of writing I deviate from that structure which

makes it take longer for me to write. It made writing this more difficult but also more interesting.