Theme Of The Laughing Man

In the Last Stand, written by Nathaniel Philbrick he discusses a big leader in the Civil War, George Armstrong Custer and how he led his troops with reckless courage. Philbrick wrote this book which can be viewed in many ways: a bloody massacre that is a big part of American history, or a tale of crazy arrogance and even unmatched bravery. One way that this book can be viewed as is the Last Stand being viewed as an account of a well-known battle that encapsulates the treatment of Native Americans during the “Indian Wars.” The next option is that the Last Stand is a retelling story of a history that does not glorify the United States Army in the Indian Wars, but shows the hubris and reckless of the leaders and army. Finally, the Last Stand can be viewed as a double meaning, both the last stand for Custer and the Last Stand for the Sitting Bull and the Lakota Sioux. In this essay, I’m going to discuss the ways in which Custer leads his troops and how he was a powerful leader during this time.

McMurtry creates a story about his family, based on their accounts left to him in memoirs and letters throughout the years. McMurtry’s ultimate purpose is to narrate an expressive literary essay that uses humor and drama to attract the attention of the reader. While discussing cowboys and their straightforward wisdom, he concludes that cowboys’ observations turn into aphorisms. One such aphorism he finds particularly appealing is as follows: “A woman’s love is like the morning dew, it’s just as likely to fall on a horseturd as on a rose” (149). McMurtry also includes a great deal of drama and suspense as well. At one point, he recalls his grandfather’s troublesome drinking; one day his grandmother issued an ultimatum, sober up or she would leave him. “The threat was undoubtedly made in earnest, and he took it so immediately to heart that he stopped drinking then and there, with a jug half full of whiskey hanging in the saddle room of the barn” (143).

In Sherman Alexie’s novel “The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian” the narrator portrays both internal and external conflicts throughout his journey to success. Arnold Junior Spirit is a fourteen-year-old boy who believes that in order to pursue his dream he will have to choose between staying in his Spokane Indian reservation or moving out to an all-white school in the neighboring farm town. But things aren’t as easy as they seem when Junior tries moving schools because he know has to be part of two communities. Many conflicts form within the Spokane Indian reservation and the Spokane Indian reservation as well comes into conflict with the white community.

Throughout “The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven” the theme of resilience is deliberately presented. Native Americans past and present continue to face stifling issues such as racism, alcoholism, isolation and suicide. Sherman Alexie makes it his obligation in his stories and poems to show Native American resiliency through humor. By using his characters to show resiliency through humor Alexie presents humor as an integral part of Native American survival.

Another aspect of human nature that we see in the story, and that adds to the effectiveness of the story, is the ability of man to hide his fear by joking about danger. When Mrs. Hutchinson arrives late, her husband jokes about "getting along without her," and she jokes back about leaving dishes in the sink. The whole town laughs. They must joke because someone they know will die very soon, and they have to cover their fear. This adds to the effectiveness of the story because we have all seen people act this way.

Education —an institution for success, opportunity, and progress — is itself steeped in racism. In Sherman Alexie’s short story “Indian Education” from his book The Longer Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven is set in two places, the Spokane Indian Reservation and a farm town nearby the reservation. The story is written in a list of formative events chronologize Victor’s youth by depicting the most potent moment from each year he is in school. Alexie addresses the issue of racism in education by examining examples of injustice and discrimination over twelve years in a boy’s life. Victor faces his initial injustice in first grade when he is bullied by bigger kids, but his understanding of injustice becomes much more complex in grades two through twelve as he experiences discrimination against his American Indian identity. Familial experiences of a Native woman, Alexie’s style and humor, and Victor’s awareness of discrimination from grade one to twelve all reveal the grim reality of growing up and being schooled on an American Indian reservation.

“She would have been a good woman if it had been somebody there to shoot her every minute of her life”(O’Connor 11). In A Good Man Is Hard To Find, the grandma was at gunpoint, about to get shot by the Misfit, but she forgives him for all of the bad things he has done. This means that she could have been a good person if there was someone there to shoot her every second of her life because it was when she was about to be shot that she became a good person. In general throughout many of O'Connor's works, including A Good Man is Hard to Find, Revelation and A Late Encounter With the Enemy she uses the theme of darkness to show how people react and who people are when in great conflict, just like in the example above. Throughout O'Connor's stories, she uses the theme of darkness to show how people really are in times of greatest conflict.

He often makes statements discussing how humor allows Alexie’s characters to show strength and connect to their Indian heritage. “The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven, humor allows his characters to display strengths and hide weaknesses, to expose prejudices and avoid realities, and to create bonds and construct barricades.” (Coulombe) He also writes about how Alexie uses humor to express stereotypes. He pokes fun at them in his short stories, as well as allowing readers to be able to see that some stereotypes can be disputed. Coulombe continually expresses how humor is used for various reasons: to allow readers to recall social injustices, to allow Indians to show their strength, and showing the bonds that can be created. Coulombe jumps from various different stories by Alexie, but he always has the same basic idea.

Sherman Alexie says that being funny breaks down the barriers between people. In his short stories, “This is what it means to say Phoenix, Arizona” and “The Lone Ranger and Tonto and Fistfight in Heaven”, Alexie has different characters who tells jokes. Many of the jokes are funny but can lead to many problems is said at an inappropriate time and place. The two characters are already an outsider as Indians, so they would have to watch what they say and do to not offend anyone near.

From culottes and cheerleading in little old Ohio to a necklace of tongues and Green berets in the jungles of Vietnam, Mary Anne Bell makes the war just a little better for her beau and their love an amusement for the other soldiers on the base. It worked, everything was fine, until the innocence she had brought with her wore off and eventually just disappeared completely. She proved the power that women could have over men, Fossie cared for her until he went mad with worry for her. He just couldn’t understand why she had changed the way she did. He isn’t happy so why is she? He tries to figure it out, but it doesn’t work very well:

The Illustrated Man, a science fiction novel written by Ray Bradbury, reaches the first publication in 1951, post World War II society and a current Cold War environment. The time period and characteristics of World War II, the Cold War, and foreshadowing of the Civil Rights Movement serve as important influences for Bradbury’s subject and themes of the novel. Recurring ideas of censorship, technology, justice, and largely death, exist in events and fears of the day. Leading all themes to tie into an allegorical warning Bradbury directs to an audience of American youth, fearful of nuclear war with the Soviet Union, artist in Hollywood during the age of McCarthyism, or anyone fearful of a relevant issue, such as, the possibilities of

     The novel ‘The Adventures of Huck Finn’ by Mark Twain is a coming of age novel. Huck’s maturity grows throughout the story. He first starts to show emotions toward a runaway slave, and by the end of the novel, has grown up to the point where, when Jim, the slave, is captured, Huck decides not to play games but to take it serious and rescue him the safest and most logical way. He also decides it give up playing games after his friend is shot to ensure that he would get the medical attention that he needed

No one is born hating another person because of the color of his skin, or his background, or his religion. People must learn to hate, and if they can learn to hate, they can be taught to love, for love comes more naturally to the human heart than its opposite.” Unfortunately Native Americans have deep roots with racism and oppression during the last 500 years. “In The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fist Fight in Heaven,” Sherman Alexie tries to show racism in many ways in multiple of his short stories. These stories, engage our history from a Native American viewpoint. Many Native Americans were brutally forced out of their homes and onto Reservations that lacked resources. Later, Indian children were taken from their families and placed into school that were designed to, “Kill the Indian, save the man.” In the book there are multiple short story that are pieces that form a larger puzzle that shows the struggles and their effects on Native Americans. Sherman Alexie shows the many sides of racism, unfair justice and extermination policies and how imagination is key for Native American survival.

screams, "But her screams are not important. I don't hear them because they are not important? (Hemingway). As in the above story the female comes in as the main point of distress. In the obvious sense given the story line of the laboring Indian they must service in the early morning ours but also in a secondary sense when the Indian woman bites George and he proclaims, "Damn squaw bitch!? (Hemingway).

Mr. Catlin was there when the Chief returned to his native people and witnessed firsthand their unwillingness of them to accept his appearance as well as their slow acknowledgment in recognizing who they saw before them. The Chief must have been excited to share with his people all that he learned in the stylish world of their equals and was probably saddened by their initial responses. As he began to share his stories of occurrences that he encountered on his tour he was scorned and foreseen as a liar because his people could not imagine or comprehend what he had seen and lived. (Catlin)