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#7. Explain the humor/irony of the title of the chapter, “Rowdy and I Have a Long and Serious Discussion About Basketball.” (Caroline Roche)

Using the chapter title, “Rowdy and I Have a Long and Serious Discussion About Basketball” (Alexie 197), is ironic because, first of all, it was 4 sentences, and second, it wasn’t a conversation! Rowdy’s emails were insults to Junior that were saying that, I am better than you and I always will be. In Juniors emails he goes from feeling sorry for Rowdy, to getting sassy with him. For example, Juniors last words were, “I’m the faggot who beat you.” (Alexie 197). Calling this discussion serious is ironic because, well, the “conversation”  used language like f***t and a**. Junior wanted to make up with Rowdy, but Rowdy was too embarassed that he lost the game,  and was still mad at Junior for abandoning him. Calling this conversation long is also ironic because Rowdy only said one complete sentence! Junior ended the chapter with saying ”I think it was also a bit friendly, and it was the first time that Rowdy had talked to me since I left the Rez”. (Alexie 198). Based on this quote I could tell that Junior didn’t expect this “discussion’ to be long and serious because, it’s saying that Junior was somewhat satisfied with Rowdy’s response! He was surprised that Rowdy even replied to his “long and serious” email. Although calling this email long and serious was pretty ironic, it still made Junior a “happy f****t!” (Alexie 198).

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