Indian Education

Juxtaposition is a literary device that places two ideas, characters, or settings close together to highlight similarities or points of contrast. Alexie uses juxtaposition in several different ways in “Indian Education.” First, it reveals the stark contrast between life on the reservation and Junior’s experiences at school in the predominantly white farm town. For example, Junior’s struggles with cultural alienation and racism at the farm town school unfold against the backdrop of the reservation’s hardships and community life. This juxtaposition emphasizes the difficulties of navigating these two worlds simultaneously and thus develops the theme of The Tension Between Cultural Identity and Assimilation. 

Another instance of juxtaposition occurs in Junior’s description of fifth grade, when he recounts his discovery of basketball alongside a cousin’s developing addiction. The language Alexie uses to describe each boy’s first encounter with his new “recreational activity” invites contrast. Junior reflects of his first basketball game, “But it felt good, that ball in my hands, all those possibilities and angles. It was mathematics, geometry. It was beautiful” (288). The same sentence structures, along with many of the same words, reappear in the description of Steven Ford “sniff[ing] rubber cement from a paper bag” (288).