How to Write the Great American Indian Novel is an ingeniously crafted sharp-witted poem by the Native American writer, Sherman Alexie. It was first published in the author’s collection of poetry called “The Summer of Black Widows”, in 1996. The poem resonates with a satirical tone that echoes a serious sense of reflection on the gruesome and harsh realities of the stereotypical portrayal of Native Americans by white Americans. Thus, the poem focuses on the themes of the struggles faced by the Native Americans within a white-dominated society and moreover, the internal conflicts between their identities. Such themes are evoked through the poem’s harsh tone of sarcasm which gives insight into the exaggerated and prejudiced characteristics given to the Indigenous Americans.

How to Write the Great American Indian Novel | Summary and Analysis

Written in a simple but elegant and insightful style, How to Write the Great American Novel is a free verse poem that contains forty lines which are broken into twenty-one non-rhyming couplets. The poem begins by portraying the stereotypical physical characteristics of Native Americans, satirically.

How to Write the Great American Indian Novel Analysis, Lines 1-4

All of the Indians must have tragic features: tragic noses, eyes, and arms.
Their hands and fingers must be tragic when they reach for tragic food.

The hero must be a half-breed, half white and half Indian, preferably
from a horse culture. He should often weep alone. That is mandatory.

The prejudiced physical traits of an Indian are their “tragic noses, eyes, and arms”, which are referred to as “tragic features” by the speaker of the poem. The exaggerated characteristics are evoked in the repetition of the word, “tragic” which echoes a necessity for the need for salvation for the Native Americans by the white people. This is once again highlighted in the next lines, “Their hands and fingers must be tragic when they reach for tragic food”. These lines echo the intensity of the hyperbolic tragedy confronted by the natives and get underlined in the repetition of another verb, “must”. Such a repetition within the words echoes a symmetrical rhythm to the poem.

In the next couplet, the speaker warns the white authors to mandatorily built the character of the hero to be “half-breed”, “half-white and half Indian”, and even more, the hero should embody “a horse culture” that will portray him as a here that weeps alone. The repetition of the word, “half”, might suggest the presumption of the Indians to be of promiscuous nature. The use of words like, “must”, “should”, and “mandatory”, all of them suggesting a sense of obligatory exaggeration within the poem, echoes the blunt and sharp employment of the tone of sarcasm by the speaker.

How to Write the Great American Indian Novel Analysis, Lines 5-14

If the hero is an Indian woman, she is beautiful. She must be slender
and in love with a white man. But if she loves an Indian man

then he must be a half-breed, preferably from a horse culture.
If the Indian woman loves a white man, then he has to be so white

that we can see the blue veins running through his skin like rivers.
When the Indian woman steps out of her dress, the white man gasps

at the endless beauty of her brown skin. She should be compared to nature:
brown hills, mountains, fertile valleys, dewy grass, wind, and clear water.

If she is compared to murky water, however, then she must have a secret.
Indians always have secrets, which are carefully and slowly revealed.

In these lines, the speaker subtly talks about the romanticization of an Indian woman. She is beautiful and slender, and her “endless beauty” becomes manifest in her “brown skin”. Moreover, she is “in love with a white man” who must be described as “so white”, “that we can see the blue veins running through his skin like rivers”. But if the Indian woman is in love with an Indian man, “then he must be a half-breed, preferable from a horse culture”. Here, the writer brings intense contrast between a “pure breed” white man and a half-breed Indian man using juxtaposition. Moreover, the mandatory fact that the Indian man should be familiar with horse culture is once again brought forth in these lines with its repetition. But yet again, the speaker of the poem underlines the Indian man to be “half-breed”, or simply, to be half-white because an Indian woman falling in love with a purely Indian man is something of the impossible and moreover, such a mandatory trait inhibited within the Native American means, the annihilation of the presence of an indigenous Indian man.

The poem gives further insight into the white American idealization of Indian women, evoked in the lines, “When the Indian woman steps out of her dress, the white man gasps”. Further, the speaker satirically allows the white men to compare her to nature, to “brown hills, mountains, fertile valleys, dewy grass, wind, and clear water”. We notice the author’s brilliant use of “brown hills”, a shade that connotes her “brown skin”. From a comparison to “clear water”, the poem further extends to contrast the pure character of the Indian woman to compare her with “murky water”, which evokes impurity. Even further, such impurity gets highlighted in the fact that “then she must have a secret”, because apparently, “Indians always have secrets” that need to be “carefully” disclosed by the white man she is in love with. The connotation of the nature of impurities within the Indians echoes their exaggerated and presumed nature of half-breed, which the speaker repeatedly mentioned in the earlier lines, and the presence of inherent evil, clearly exhibiting a derogatory and negative connotation on Indians from the side of the white media.

How to Write the Great American Novel Analysis, Lines 15-22

Yet Indian secrets can be disclosed suddenly, like a storm.
Indian men, of course, are storms. They should destroy the lives

of any white women who choose to love them. All white women love
Indian men. That is always the case. White women feign disgust

at the savage in blue jeans and T-shirt, but secretly lust after him.
White women dream about half-breed Indian men from horse cultures.

Indian men are horses, smelling wild and gamey. When the Indian man
unbuttons his pants, the white woman should think of topsoil.

At the beginning of these couplets, the tone of the poem from a careful and slow rhythm, echoing the lines, “carefully and slowly revealed”, suddenly shifts to a tone of the dark “like a storm”. If Indian secrets can be revealed slowly and carefully, they can also “be disclosed suddenly, like a storm”, as well. But here, the speaker immediately juxtaposes the harsh storm with the “Indian men” by the device of simile. The poet concludes that Indian men are similar to a storm, subtly suggesting the transition of Indian men as a storm that can destroy the lives of white women. Such a comparison might as well evoke the Indian men as a secret that embodies the inherent evilness and thus, brilliantly echoing a seamless merging between the secretive nature of the Indian woman to that of the Indian man. Once again, homogenizing the Indians to hold the trait of a secretive nature and evilness and thus, impurity. But such a negative implication of the trait of the Native Americans comes to be bestowed to the white women who hold the secret of lust towards the Indian men. The following couplets echo this.

The couplet begins with, “..All white women love/Indian men. That is always the case”, once again portraying an exclusive singular narrative on Indian men. Such a line gets further underlined with the following lines that offer the readers an irony. The line says, “..White women feign disgust/ at the savage in blue jeans and T-shirt, but secretly lust after him”. This line is very significant with abundant meanings and connotations as we see the brilliance of the writer in conveying the secretive nature that earlier described the Indians, upon the white women. This is undoubtedly referred to in the word, “feign” and moreover, in the lines that suggest the secretive lust for white women in Indian men. Hence, an indication of a bitter irony about the hypocritical nature of the white people.

Moreover, these lines are important because this is the first time we witness the poet using the word “savage”, an image that alludes to the Native Americans from a Western perception. By introducing this word to denote the Indians, the poet carefully builds the dark and gruesome characteristic traits of them from the side of the white people. The image of “savageness” in Indians is suggested and introduced in yet another technique of seamless merging employed by the writer, to contrast closely to equate the image of a horse to that of Indian men, or simply, as evoked in the line, “Indian men are horses”.

As the “White women dream about half-breed Indian men from horse cultures”, the repetition of the physical traits of Indian men in words like, “half-breed” and “horse culture” to emphasize them, the speaker further moves from referring to the Indian men as familiar with a horse culture, to immediately juxtapose them to horses itself, evoking the typical savageness embodied to Indians by the white people. But they are not any horses, they are “smelling wild and gamey”, suggesting their untamed or even more, their uncivilized nature. The word, “gamey” might connote their romanticized stereotypical quality of embodying strong sexual energy, and this gets evoked more in the following final lines of this couplet, “When the Indian man/ unbuttons his pants, the white woman should think of topsoil”.

How to Write the Great American Indian Novel Analysis, Lines 23-32

There must be one murder, one suicide, one attempted r*pe.
Alcohol should be consumed. Cars must be driven at high speeds.

Indians must see visions. White people can have the same visions
if they are in love with Indians. If a white person loves an Indian

then the white person is Indian by proximity. White people must carry
an Indian deep inside themselves. Those interior Indians are half-breed

and obviously from horse cultures. If the interior Indian is male
then he must be a warrior, especially if he is inside a white man.

If the interior Indian is female, then she must be a healer, especially if she is inside
a white woman. Sometimes there are complications.

These couplets here provide the conventional and clichéd stereotypical characteristics of Native Americans in the media of the white community. The speaker sarcastically points out in the first couplet as the poet writes, “There must be one murder, one suicide, one attempted r*pe”, to evoke the exaggerated miserable and suffering lives of the Native Americans. Moreover, in the following lines of the first couplet, the poet even further brings forth an irrational and uncivilized manner of living with respect to rash driving and alcohol consumption. Such descriptions, of course, make it the greatest American Indian novel ever written. The poet adds one more significant ingredient to this spellbinding novel, which is, “Indians must see visions”, echoing the superstitious culture of Indians. Moreover, the poet suggests that white people, as well, can have these visions but only “if they are in love with Indians”. And this makes, apparently, the white man to be in close “proximity” to an Indian.

Such an apparent and false proximity, a closeness, is brought forth in the following lines of the poem to construct the Indians to be half-breed and thus, not purely Indian but half-white and half-Indian. This is suggested in the lines, “White people must carry/ an Indian deep inside themselves” and even though these “interior Indians” are supposed to be, “half-breed” and “obviously from horse cultures”, once again the repetition of these two characteristic traits, they are “warriors” because “he is inside a white man”. And similar to this, if the “interior Indian” is female, then she is a “healer” because “she is inside/ a white woman”. These lines, undoubtedly, echo the resistance from the side of the white people to bestow the Indians with a pure breed and keep them within their promiscuous nature. Such lines clearly indicate the fact that even if the white people are in close proximity to an Indian, they are only attributed with the positive characteristics of the latter. Thus, once again, clearly emphasizing the “half-breed” trait of the Indians.

How to Write the Great American Indian Novel Analysis, Lines 33-40

An Indian man can be hidden inside a white woman. An Indian woman
can be hidden inside a white man. In these rare instances,

everybody is a half-breed struggling to learn more about his or her horse culture.
There must be redemption, of course, and sins must be forgiven.

For this, we need children. A white child and an Indian child, gender
not important, should express deep affection in a childlike way.

In the Great American Indian novel, when it is finally written,
all of the white people will be Indians and all of the Indians will be ghosts.

The poet begins the couplet with the use of chiasmus that adds emphasis to the point that Indians are never bestowed with a pure breed but rather, they are always inhabited by the white man, or simply, Indians are always, “half-breed”, “half-Indian” and “half-white”, as echoed at the beginning of the poem. The speaker further moves to describe “rare instances” of Indian Americans struggling with their “half-breed” identity, of course, the tone is sarcastic here because the most difficulty an Indian American has to confront is the constant juggling between their identities.

The poet moves to end his poem by declaring a need for “redemption, of course, and sins must be forgiven”. And, such redemption or salvation can be provided by the future generation, “we need children”. But obviously, such a redemption comes from the white people because even though it is a “great burden” for them, only they can save the Indians and walk them towards the path of salvation. The alleged white man’s burden, as we all know, is to save the non-white “indigenous” people.

The poem ultimately ends with a bitter and depressive tone with the lines, “In the Great American Indian novel, when it is finally written/ all of the white people will be Indians and all of the Indians will be ghosts”, which gives insight into the harsh reality of the Indian Americans, wherein they are dispossessed into “ghosts”, by the white people. Moreover, these lines subtly evoke the process of colonialism. But the speaker utters that only when the novel embodies the sense that all white people are Indians, whereas, all the indigenous Indians become ghosts, an apparition that does not exist in reality, here we discern the essence of an absolutely great American Indian Novel. These lines echo the extreme tone of sarcasm, satire, and irony but at the same time a tone of sympathy and pity toward the Native Americans.