The Lone Ranger And Tonto Fistfight In Heaven

Most of Alexie’s writing reflects life on the reservations today. The poverty, oppression, commodity food, and alcoholism are the main themes in his stories. The title story of his collection The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fist Fight in Heaven, however, deals with the life of an Indian man who has left the reservation to live in Seattle and some of the obstacles he faces in the white world. We never know the main character’s name, probably because he feels like a nameless nobody in this strange world. He is alienated and told that he doesn’t belong even

The colonization of Native American people has consequently framed Native American society as heteronormative, despite the historical inaccuracies of such a notion. The relationships presented throughout this collection range from sexual, platonic, familial and interracial. Race is "a constant presence" (14) throughout the course of each narrative. Alexie 's stories question of identity as it relates to race and sexuality across a boad spectrum. The nine stories in The Toughest Indian in the World move off the reservation to Seattle or the nearby city of Spokane. The ‘urban Indians’ at the heart of these stories are educated, middle class and sober, and outwardly at least, they are fully integrated into the dominant white society. This paper will explore the trajectory of identity in Alexie 's work and how Toughest Indian demonstates a sense of otherness of Indians in an urban envirnment. This theme is expored through Alexie 's treatment of race and sexuality as demonstrated in two stories: Toughest Indian and John Wayne.

Once the men were ready, they all went walking towards the “whites village,” chanting our tribes incantation:''Tous des sauvages, des sauvages!" The whole tribe was chanting back and forth. While the tribe was marching their way over there, I tagged along but hiding behind them. In order for my father not to see me because although he is my father when it comes to choosing to be a commander and a father he will choose to be a commander instead. Then realized John was not with his people. He ended up finding me and explained to me what had happened, that his father was informed from one of his informers that John had fallen in love with a Native American and his dad then became furious. I explained what I told my dad and how I felt, after we united we decided to try to talk to our fathers while they were at

In Sherman Alexie’s short story “Superman and Me,” Alexie writes about his life as an Indian child growing up on the Spokane Indian Reservation in the state of Washington. He depicts his life from when he was three years old, living on the reservation, up to his current self, as an adult writer who frequently visits that reservation. He primarily describes his interest in reading and how it has changed his life for the better.

In a Bill Moyer’s interview “Sherman Alexie on Living Outside Borders”, Moyer’s interviews Native American author and poet Sherman Alexie. In the Moyer’s and Company interview, Alexie shares his story about the struggles that he endured during his time on a Native American reservation located at Wellpinit, Washington. During the interview, Alexie goes in-depth about his conflicts that plagued the reservation. In an award-winning book by Sherman Alexie called “The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian”, Alexie writes semi-autobiography that reveals his harsh life on the reservation through a fictional character named Arnold Spirit Junior. In Alexie’s semi-autobiography, Alexie shares his struggles of a poor and alcoholic family, the

In his story “The Lakota Way; Joseph Marshall III adequately convinces the reader to persevere through a series of stories that allows the reader to develop a personal connection with characters. Marshall achieves this by informing the reader and using formal diction. This allows his readers to experience how perseverance can have a positive impact on one’s life. Marshall teaches us that Perseverance represents a quality in human beings that allows us to be steadfast despite the difficulty. In the folk tale “The Story of the Giant,” perseverance is abundant; Marshall utilizes the skill of teaching to persuade his audience to persevere through the story. Marshall‘s unique way of writing allows the reader to take lessons from a story and influence them to use it in their own lives. From lya the giant terrorizing people to Indians having to leave their land because of the government to Marshall’s grandfather’s stories of hardship, Marshall shows his audience how the Native Americans have always had it rough but more importantly how they persevered.

Probably the most famous "Indian" in American popular media that comes to everyone’s mind is the Lone Ranger's sidekick, Tonto, portrayed by Native American actor Jay Silverheels. Tonto “became the quintessential stoic Indian, which in some ways was a positive step and in other ways locked Indians into a sort of hapless, slow-witted stereotype” (Fitzgerald, 2013:92). Today, the portrayal of Tonto has been seen by some Native Americans and others as derogatory and degrading. He often spoke in a Pidgin, broken English language saying things like, "That right, Kemo Sabe," or "Him say man ride over ridge on horse." However, later depictions have showed Tonto speaking English more clearer and being treated as an equal

Indian Horse, a novel by Richard Wagamese, is a realistic and tragic story of a First Nations child named Saul who is taken to residential school. Saul Indian Horse goes through a multitude traumatic experiences at a young age; experiences consisting of losing his family, experiencing sexual abuse, and violent racism. In the novel, a theme the reader is always brought back to is Saul’s connection to, and longing for the land. Saul’s relationship with the land is meaningful to his character because it helps him understand his family history, connects him with his culture, and comforts him in times of need.

Sandra Cisneros’s short story “Never Marry a Mexican” deals heavily with the concept of myth in literature, more specifically the myth La Malinche, which focuses on women, and how their lives are spun in the shadows on men (Fitts). Myths help power some of the beliefs of entire cultures or civilizations. She gives the reader the mind of a Mexican-American woman who seems traitorous to her friends, family and people she is close to. This causes destruction in her path in the form of love, power, heartbreak, hatred, and an intent to do harm to another, which are themes of myth in literature. The unreliable narrator of this story was created in this story with the purpose to show her confusion and what coming from two completely different

Sherman J. Alexie, is a short story written in the first person focusing on two Native American Men who grew up together on a Reservation for Native Americans but have been estranged from each other since they were teenagers. Victor who is the narrator of this story is a young man who lost faith in his culture and its traditions, while Thomas our second main character is a deeply rooted traditional storyteller. In the beginning of the story Victor, our Native American narrator learns the death of his father. Jobless and penniless, his only wish is to go to Phoenix, Arizona and bring back his father’s ashes and belongings to the reservation in Spokane. The death of Victor’s father leads him and Thomas to a journey filled with childhood

Imagine a world without hope, diversity, uniqueness, heroes and role models. Everybody would have the same height, shape, voice, skin color, eye color, hair color, clothes, job, interests and so on. They would most likely live in the same type of home, own the same things, speak the same language and eat the same food. If a person tried to be unique, the society would try to drag that person down to society’s hopeless status. Personally, I couldn’t stand a minute in a world like that. Unfortunately, worlds like these exist. In Sherman Alexie’s The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fist Fight in Heaven, Alexie writes about a typical Indian reservation in the United States without hope, diversity, uniqueness, heroes and role models. A large

     Throughout Ceremony, the author, Leslie Silko, displays the internal struggle that the American Indians faced at that time in history. She displays this struggle between good and evil in several parts of the book. One is the myth explaining the origin of the white man.

The story begins at a ranger headquarters close to the Rio Grande.Vaughan Mendill is sitting outside by himself. His chief and comrades were all in the hospital. He had been a ranger since his youth. He began to think about how his life had been lonely and how he desperately wanted to share his life with someone else. He knew that would be impossible as long as he was a ranger, but being a ranger was all he ever knew. One day he began to reminisce over all the girls that he might have married, one of them was Roseta. Roseta was the daughter of Ulvado, who was a vaquero. Ulvado had married an American woman, so Roseta was half Mexican half American. As a Texan Vaughan had the mindset that every mexican was his enemy, but Roseta was different.

Dragons, witches, princesses and knights. These are the imaginary friends in so many children's lives. For young adults, those fairy tale characters give way to darker characters and more realistic situations. However, what do they all have in common? They live in short stories. Two short stories that are interesting are ""Thank You M'am"" by Langston Hughes and " The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight Heaven" by Sherman Alexie. In both stories the main characters are mistreated and grow up in difficult situations. In "Thank You M'am" Roger tries to steal a woman's purse and she takes him in and helps him. In The Lone Ranger he gets bullied and no one cares about him, he did have a girlfriend but there

Writers tend to use specific techniques to get their point across and engage readers. Sherman Alexie's humor seems to be the approach evident throughout his fiction in order to entertain and inform his readers, but singularly in his assortment of short stories, The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven. The pain and anger of the stories in his collection is stabilized by his keen sense of humor.