Analysis of The Facebook Sonnet by Sherman Alexie Essay Example

It is a reunion every day online if one asks Facebook. A society where the main drive of entertainment is being broadcasted upon the media. This drive of adrenaline is causing people to feel self-conscious of themselves and overlook the beauty from within. The perception of social media platforms being the mainstream source of growth for humanity has shifted the culture and value of an individual to question their own identity. Although there are wonderful parts of social media platforms to help people with long-distance communication, it is starting to create a new society filled with such unrealistic expectations. These so-called original ideas are implementing a change to a society where young children are wanting to change their appearances due to what they see on the screen. “The Facebook Sonnet” by Sherman Alexie has an excellent explanation of how social media platforms are changing the way an individual perceives themselves and deteriorating their own values. Alexie offers the readers a sense of freedom to depict the meaning of her poem in many ways as she uses social media platforms like a simile comparing Facebook as material lore. She summarizes the repercussions of social media by bringing the audience back to high school. This is important as the author is conveying the idea that human beings are stuck in their childhood universes at times where the number of likes and comments are the main objectives that are being carried to the present day. The overall message of “The Facebook Sonnet” the author wants to convey is that social media platforms such as Facebook are negatively taking over people’s lives.

To begin with, the first line from “The Facebook Sonnet”, “Welcome to the endless high-school,” has such a powerful introduction sentence that strikes the readers’ attention as it compels a deepening message about the imprisonment of an individual’s glory days of high school with the use of imagery (Alexie 549). Adding to that, the first stanza discusses the high school reunion of individuals to be undervaluing and breaking to pieces from the results of Facebook. These social media platforms are taking the significant tradition of reuniting with peers at events like high school reunions simply because an individual’s life can be announced with a click of a button. In the first stanza, the author uses rhymes to show a connection between high school and cruelty. Alexie is implying social media to be the endless cycle of a high school reunion because platforms like Facebook are becoming the place to reunite with old friends and relive the good old days. Adding to that, the rhyming of friends and “unmend” in the first stanza offers a different perspective of human beings putting on a false image of themselves to what people nowadays refer to as being fake. The last line in the first stanza is written in iambic structure to emphasize the author’s intentions of informing the readers about the undervalue of high school reunions that are caused by the Internet. 

Secondly, the second stanza gives the audience a more narrow and sophisticated riddle as Alexie uses an iambic meter to stress each syllable to tell her message. For example, the first line in the second stanza from “The Facebook Sonnet,” “The present. Why can’t we pretend” uses the word we as a noun rather than a pronoun (Alexie 549). Because pronouns are usually not stressed, it is important for the audience to understand that Alexie is referring to the word “we” to human beings as she reasoned people to be the main cause of social media addicts, not Internet platforms themselves. Additionally, Alexie makes the readers think when she includes only one question in the whole poem to make the line stand out. In the second line of the second stanza in “The Facebook Sonnet,” “Every stage of life is the same?”, the author is stating that people cannot seem to grow out of their high school phase (Alexie 549).  Furthermore, Alexie uses high school as a metaphor for people who have the need to tell the world about their lives 24/7 and the mentality of never adulting. The author's use of the word childhood metaphorically represents the society individuals live in where the social media platforms keep on consuming a person’s life. 

The third stanza in “The Facebook Sonnet” like in the others is written in modern style to help readers understand the poem more clearly. With that being said, the word choices for an individual to read fluently shows social media platforms are causing a reading deficiency. The reason is people spend too much time on the Internet rather than reading books and texts that can strengthen their reading skills and abilities. In the first line of the third stanza, “That occupy the young. Let fame,” is a tribrachic meter which is uncommon to have three unstressed syllables (Alexie 549). The use of the rhyme scheme like same, games, fame, and domain, along with many others, all support the validity of the author’s meaning about social media platforms disturbing the lives of individuals. Alexie portrays humans in her poem to be all the same and the social media universe they live in is basically a game where individuals seek happiness from fame through the Internet and do not have to try as hard to have a connection with God nor the need to go to church as the source comes from the public and open society. The last stanza in the third stanza, “Let church.com become our church,” ties the first three stanzas together by using the word church.com as a contradiction to the author’s message. This shows that Alexie herself is becoming part of the society she has referred to all along as social media is starting to take over humanity and future generations. 

Lastly, the fourth stanza in the poem is the most coercive and challenging section. Although the final stanza is composed of only two lines, Alexie does a great job of filtering her word choices to make the audience depict her overall message. The first line in the final stanza, “Let’s sign up, sign in, and confess,” abruptly alerts the readers about the impact of social media because Alexie uses this technique to stress the importance of the line as it contributes to the poem’s overall meaning (Alexie 549). The use of imagery in this line helps prove the author’s point and serves the purpose of everyone confessing their wrongdoings and pleading to be found guilty. Alexie displays a notification for their guiltiness to result in individuals finding a quiet place for themselves as privacy seems to be lacking on Facebook and the Internet. The last line in the fourth stanza, “Here at the altar of loneliness,” displays the entirety of the theme of the poem as Alexie uses a non-poetic meter to emphasize the importance of how social media can lead an individual to disparity and loss in their values and beliefs when one would expect it to fail to contribute to the overall message (Alexie 549). Alexie uses the word “here” to show the location and status of where an individual stands which Alexie implies as loneliness which one can conclude is where humanity lies at the moment.

The transition of the author’s overall message is transparent throughout her poem as she includes many aspects of poetic meters, rhyme schemes, imagery, repeated sounds, and many other components. Adding to that, the author conveys her message on social media about taking over people’s lives negatively by using her word choices as a metaphor to lure the audience’s attention. Alexie uses material lore such as Facebook to signify the reality about the desires and how social media is ingrained in the society individuals live in. And just like that, a person’s identity can implode with a click of a button.