Flight Patterns By Sherman Alexie

In the story "The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven" by Sherman Alexie, points out the hardships of being a Native American back in the 20th century. These hardships were racism, alcoholism, poverty and isolation. The story takes place in the reservation and it is about a young Native American whom struggles in society because of his skin color, family's addictions and fights. The narrator moves to Seattle with his white girlfriend who he seems to have an odd relationship because they are constantly fighting. He becomes an alcoholic and moves back to the reservation after a break up with his girlfriend.

In Anna Lee Walters’s story The Warriors, Walters represents a story about Native American’s cultures and traditions. The main character of her story is a Pawnee man, Uncle Ralph. He is a typical Native American and struggles with alcoholism. The Pawnee’s culture he brings to home every time deeply influences his two nieces. He usually tells Pawnee stories and teaches Pawnee language and songs to two sisters. As a whole, the author splits Pawnee culture to two aspects, customs and beliefs. In order to analyze the effect of Pawnee’s culture in tribes and families, Walter states the influence of Pawnee’s local color by describing how Uncle Ralph gets along with two sisters and the beliefs of Pawnee people live as stars after death.

Addressing cultural stereotypes can be an extremely difficult task for many individuals, especially when the individuals themselves are being stereotyped. Sherman Alexie’s short story “Flight Patterns” brings about new ideas in regards to Native American Indian people. The main character who is a man William, completely contradicts the stereotype of the typical Indian individual. Although William defies the stereotype of the typical Native American individual he is guilty himself of giving other groups of people stereotypes as well. There are many times in Alexie’s “Flight Patterns” when common preconceptions are both questioned and answered through the thorough examination of the cultural stereotypes in the short story, the thorough discussions that take place between characters, and the

Beliefs and values are the characteristics in humans that help determine how one reacts to their surroundings. In the story, “Flight Patterns” by Sherman Alexie, William, being of Spokane descent and a constant target of discrimination, his beliefs heavily influence his behavior throughout the story. William’s value of family, heritage and his compassion can be seen as influencers in the story. As and the make to me by we are now saved in the touch I can wait.

Evans, Louwanda, and Joe Feagin. "Middle-Class African American Pilots: The Continuing Significance of Racism." American Behavioral Scientist, 56.5 (2012): 650-665.

Sherman Alexie is very well known for his takes on Native Americans in modern American society. His books and stories most often are inside thoughts of situations that are occurring or have already occurred. Two of his shorter stories highlight two very different situations but in a sense connect with another. “Flight Plan” and “Breaking and Entering,” although confronting Native American characters, reveal to the reader the important information about American life in general. “Flight Plan” is a story that involves an encounter between a Native American business man and an Ethiopian taxi driver. This story takes place in a taxi cab, revealing

Although, white men no longer owned black men, they still held power over them. The Jim Crow Laws severely limited the freedoms of colored people and gave white people the right to persecute them for a variety of reasons. Wright, was raised in an extremely impoverished family and was often neglected attention as a young child because his mother was forced to provide for the family. This lack of guidance, isolated him from many aspects of society, one of which was the interaction with white people. Unfortunately for Wright, while he tried to understand the system, he was denied answers to his questions, “I had begun to notice that my mother became irritated when I questioned her about whites and blacks, and I could not quite understand it.” (Page ??). The Jim Crow system was based on colored people following the rules that white people had set, so questioning these rules was just as dangerous as not following them. This made is very difficult for Wright to learn how to interact with white people, yet as he got older and experienced the interactions between the two races he began to share the fear that kept white people in

Even though I identify the most with Native American, I appreciate the other pieces of my heritage as well. This helped me to view the points the author made with some understanding. I was also reminded of a recent controversy in which a Caucasian woman felt as though she identified as an African-American. The idea is parallel to this story in that both the author and the woman classified themselves differently from their own lineage. For this, they were not only looked upon with negativity, but judged for their own personal designation of how they identified

Throughout the works “Battle Royal” and “I Hated Tonto (Still Do)” the psychological issues associated with racial stereotyping are confronted and explored through the use of literary devices including foreshadowing, allusion, imagery, tone, narration, literary structure, repetition, word choice, and symbols. These works both confront racial stereotypes of African American and Native American people by examining the harmful and all encompassing nature of the psychological damage racial stereotypes cause. Although contrasting in their uses of different literary devices and examination of different racial stereotypes, these works both aim to illustrate the perpetual state of self-hatred, disillusionment with one’s race and culture, and pursuit

Race plays a large role in who and how we define ourselves. The question time and time again asked is who hold the key in deciding who do someone allow to define along with the limitations of such assumptions us and can the limitations how society views us hold the black individual(s) back. In this response I will focus on the idea of “Racism and its effects on individual experience”. Throughout the novel Wright tries to come to terms with the idea to come to terms with individual identity, conformity/rebellion, and revaluation of the self.

This settler colonialism can be seen through the misconstrued stories and images portraying Native American lifestyle, such as the postcard titled “The Belles of San Luis Rey” which “recast human beings as objects, and mythologized objects at that.” (Miranda 48) Miranda also notices the distinct racial socioeconomic separation at the airport itself, expressing that “the people around me are racially predictable: the white people are travelers…the black people are workers.” (Miranda 134) Even in this microcosm representation of America, the white people are the ones enjoying life’s luxuries while the colored people are still shackled to their position of serving. This familiar symmetry in race and occupation has persisted till today, because the laws and the structure of the United States directly benefits whites over other

In the short story, “Adventures of an Indian Princess”, by Patricia Riley, stereotypes of Native Americans are reflected in the Rapiers’ cultural insensitivity towards Arletta, causing her to be alienated; her alienation reveals that failing to recognize stereotypes can be deeply damaging. For example, when Arletta and the counterfeit Native American pose together, Mr. Rapier affixes “the tomahawk in Arletta’s hand, plunks the headdress on her head sideways and arranges the necklace around her neck…” (65). Mr. Rapier’s belief that all Native Americans are backward savages that carry tomahawks immediately frustrates Arletta. She was taught to value the beauty and traditions of her Cherokee culture, and the Rapiers’ oversimplified image of Native

Sherman Alexie’s “The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven” is a short story about the modern day Native American. The speaker of the story welcomes the reader to the setting of the story, a 7-11. In this 7-11 the graveyard manager is skeptical about the speaker thinking that he is an armed robber and what not because of his tan skin and long ponytail. The speaker understands why the cashier may feel threatened because he himself was one a 7-11 graveyard shift employee. The speaker has a white girlfriend who he fights with quite often and she accuses him of being an alcoholic, eventually leaves his life with her in Seattle, Washington to go back to his reservation where his family is. He often has vivid dreams of Native Americans and white fighting on a battlefield until it takes a sick twist and the white are playing polo with an Indian woman’s head. The speaker is often stopped by the police for wandering in neighborhoods that the majority of the population is white. Him being different makes white people nervous and on edge. The speaker talks about how he was supposed to be different and that he had potential compared to your average Native American” (Alexie 386). The speaker was in college from a couple years and eventually dropped out and ends up a couch potato flipping through the television stations like the way society

After reading "Flight Patterns", I would agree that William is intelligent. While he may have some preconceived generalizations about certain groups of people; however, he is constantly contradicting his own thoughts, which to me, shows how open-minded he is. I also found it interesting that William finds pleasure in the discomfort of seeing people stereotype others. He has lived in neighborhoods where he feels uncomfortable because he and his family are the minority in the neighborhood, so he had no problem seeing other people feel how he

Richard Wright’s novel, Native Son, depicts the life of the general black community in Chicago during the 1930’s. Though African Americans had been freed from slavery, they were still burdened with financial and social oppression. Forced to live in small, unclean quarters, eat foods on the verge of going bad, and pay entirely too much for both, these people struggled not to be pressured into a dangerous state of mind (Bryant). All the while, they are expected to act subserviently before their oppressors. These conditions rub many the wrong way, especially Bigger Thomas, the protagonist of the story. Though everyone he is surrounded by is going through all the same things that he is, growing up poor and uneducated has made Bigger angry at the whole world. You can see this anger in everything he does, from his initial thoughts to his final actions. Because of this, Bigger Thomas almost seems destined to find trouble and meet a horrible fate. Wright uses these conventions of naturalism to develop Bigger’s view of the white community(). With all of these complications, Bigger begins to view all white people as an overwhelming force that drags him to his end. Wright pushes the readers into Bigger’s mind, thoroughly explaining Bigger’s personal decay. Even Wright himself says that Bigger is in fact a native son, just a “product of American culture and the violence and racism that suffuse it” (Wright).