19 pages • 38 minutes read
Sherman AlexieA modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
The title provides the setting for the poem: an Amtrak train travelling from Boston to New York City. The opening lines provide a bit of concrete detail and establish the pattern of contrasts that will continue throughout the poem. The speaker is a Native American man seated across the aisle from a white woman.
She says, “Look at all the history, the house / on the hill there is over two hundred years old,” (Lines 2-3). The information is remarkable to the woman because it is filtered through her limited experience. When she “points out the window past” (Line 4) the speaker, neither her gaze nor her thoughts pause to consider who the speaker is or how different his perspective may be. The speaker suggests the problem is perhaps less a personal failure than a systemic one, as the woman points out the window “into what she has been taught” (Line 5). She likely has not questioned that teaching because her privileged position has never required her to do so. The speaker does not have that luxury and must view the world through multiple lenses.
The speaker says they have not learned much more about American History in their short visit “than what I expected” (Line 7) and has seen “far less / of what we should all know of the tribal stories” (Lines 7-8).
By Sherman Alexie
Flight: A Novel
Sherman Alexie
Indian Killer
Sherman Alexie
Reservation Blues
Sherman Alexie
Reservation Love Song
Sherman Alexie
Ten Little Indians
Sherman Alexie
The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian
Sherman Alexie
The Facebook Sonnet
Sherman Alexie
The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven
Sherman Alexie
The Toughest Indian in the World
Sherman Alexie
This Is What It Means to Say Phoenix, Arizona
Sherman Alexie
War Dances
Sherman Alexie
What You Pawn I Will Redeem
Sherman Alexie