Blue Collar Workers

The central theme of "Clean, Cleaner, Cleanest" is the plight of blue-collar workers in the contemporary United States. In an interview with The New Yorker, Sherman Alexie said that he wrote the story in response to the 2016 presidential election. He was interested in portraying the demographic of poor white Americans in a different light, after they were widely credited with the election of Donald Trump to the presidency. Marie, as a motel maid, is a member of the blue-collar workforce who departs from the social ideology often associated with poor white people: she is religious but not conservative, opinionated but not hateful, and simply trying to keep herself afloat financially. In Marie, Alexie creates a likable and honest person who, while still flawed, represents the best the blue-collar workforce has to offer.

The author portrays Marie's job as thankless and unglamorous. After thirty years...