Breaking Down Locked Doors

In the story "The Joy of Reading and Writing: Superman and Me" Sherman Alexie talks about his experiences as a young indian boy on the reservation who learned how to read from Superman comics. Alexie does not remember many specifics about the issue of the comic or the villain Superman fought, but he does remember one panel where he breaks through a door. This panel has great significance with the ending of the story because when Alexie is older he continues to visit the reservation as often as he can to teach creative writing to the kids on the reservation. Most of the kids love to write but there are others who have empty notebooks and don't carry a pen or a pencil with them. Alexie describes them as having "locked doors." He says, "I throw my weight against their locked doors. The door holds. I am smart. I am arrogant. I am lucky. I am trying to save our lives." This quote is a metaphor from the panel that Alexie remembers from his childhood Superman comics where Superman breaks down the door. Like Superman, Alexie wants to save their lives by breaking down their "wall" to get them to learn how to write to advance the literacy level of that Native American reservation and Native American people in general.