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Essay on indian english literature
Reflection on indian literature
Reflection on indian literature
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The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven
A Major Works Data Sheet
By Daniel Shiels
General Information
Title: Alexie, Sherman. The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven. New York: Atlantic Monthly, 1993. Web.
Author: Sherman Alexie
Biographical Information about the Author: Sherman Alexie is a poet, an author, and filmmaker who was born October 7th, 1966 on the Native American Spokane Reservation, which is where he pull most of his stories from. He currently resides in Seattle, Washington with his wife, Diane Tomhave.
Date of Publication: 1933 by Perennial/Atlantic Monthly Press
Genre: The genre of this book is considered to be adult fiction or short stories.
Characteristics of the Genre: the genre of “Short Stories” becomes blatantly obvious immediately upon reading the book: it is broken up into multiple unnumbered chapters that have no specific time sequence. In addition, the books “Adult Fiction” tag is not a misnomer. Themes of alcohol, sex, violence, and drugs permeate the novel along with the Indian reservations residents’ oft-used ‘colorful vocabulary.’
Historical Info about the Novel: The book was published by Alexie in 1993, but he had written many other short stories about his family and hometown (using pseudo-names, of course) which he used to offer a new insight to Indian Reservation life. The book was published, and is in circulation, during a time where Indians face numerous trials because of their heritage and the society that they are born into. The setting is derived from Alexie’s hometown, the Spokane Indian Reservation in Washington.
Plot Summary: The plot of this book can simply be summarized as a collection of short stories and tales that explain the child, teen, and adult life of Victor Joseph and...
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Chapter Summaries
Every Little Hurricane
A Drug Called Tradition
Because My Father Always Said He Was the Only Indian Who Saw Jimi Hendrix Play The Star Spangled Banner at Woodstock
Crazy Horse Dreams
The Only Traffic Signal on the Reservation Doesn't Flash Red Anymore
Amusements
This Is What It Means to Say Phoenix, Arizona
The Fun House
All I Wanted to Do Was Dance
The Trial of Thomas Builds-the-Fire
Distances
Jesus Christ's Half-Brother Is Alive and Well on the Spokane Indian Reservation
A Train Is an Order of Occurrence Designed to Lead to Some Result
A Good Story
The First Annual All-Indian Horseshoe Pitch and Barbecue
The Approximate Size of My Favorite Tumor
Indian Education
The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven
Family Portrait
Somebody Kept Saying Powwow
Witnesses, Secret and Not
Flight
Junior Polatkin's Wild West Show
The Author’s Writing Style
This book report deal with the Native American culture and how a girl named Taylor got away from what was expected of her as a part of her rural town in Pittman, Kentucky. She struggles along the way with her old beat up car and gets as far west as she can. Along the way she take care of an abandoned child which she found in the backseat of her car and decides to take care of her. She end up in a town outside Tucson and soon makes friends which she will consider family in the end.
To be a legible player, one had to be an Approved Indian. An approved Indian in this case had to be of a quarter or more Indian blood. If challenged on their origin, they were supposed to avail their BIA roll numbers. So this makes BIA roll numbers the sole way of determining whether the player in question is Indian or not. This makes it ridiculous since as stated, all official Indians were under the rule of the whites and only the “recognized Indians” were considered Indians regardless of their skin color, what they speak or where they come from. Having “Approved Indian” as the title of the piece creates ridicule and impacts curiosity to the
"Unit 2: Reading & Writing About Short Fiction." ENGL200: Composition and Literature. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2011. 49-219. Web. 19 Apr. 2014.
Charters, A. (2011). The Story and Its Writer: An Introduction to Short Fiction (8th ed.). Boston: Bedfor/St. Martin's.
Stein, Karen F. "Amy Tan." Critical Survey of Short Fiction, Second Revised Edition (2001): 1-3. Literary Reference Center Plus. EBSCO. Web. 13 Apr. 2011.
discrimination that the Indians felt around the Indian reservations, but the main story is about how a
Overall, Alexie clearly faced much difficulty adjusting to the white culture as a Native American growing up, and expresses this through Victor in his essay, “Indian Education.” He goes through all of the stages of his childhood in comparison with his white counterparts. Racism and bullying are both evident throughout the whole essay. The frustration Alexie got from this is clear through the negativity and humor presented in the experiences he had to face, both on and off of the American Indian reservation. It is evident that Alexie faces discrimination from white people, who he portrays as evil in every way, to show that his childhood was filled with anger, fear, and sorrow.
In conclusion, Sherman Alexie created a story to demonstrate the stereotypes people have created for Native Americans. The author is able to do this by creating characters that present both the negative and positive stereotypes that have been given to Native Americans. Alexie has a Native American background. By writing a short story that depicts the life of an Indian, the reader also gets a glimpse of the stereotypes encountered by Alexie. From this short story readers are able to learn the importance of having an identity while also seeing how stereotypes are used by many people. In the end of the story, both Victor and Thomas are able to have an understanding of each other as the can finally relate with each other through Victor's father.
“Short Stories." Short Story Criticism. Ed. Jelena Krstovic. Vol. 127. Detroit: Gale, Cengage Learning, 2010. 125-388. Literature Criticism Online. Gale. VALE - Mercer County Community College. 28 February 2014
Stanley, D. A. (Ed.). (1999). Novels for Students Volume 7. Farmington Hills, MI: Gale Research.
Wilson, M. & Clark, R. (n.d.). Analyzing the Short Story. [online] Retrieved from: https://www.limcollege.edu/Analyzing_the_Short_Story.pdf [Accessed: 12 Apr 2014].
In her book, West of Everything, Jane Tompkins discusses the essential elements that define the genre. From her discussion, one can extract a working definition: the setting, th...
Magill, Frank N., ed. Critical Survey of Short Fiction. Revised ed. Vol. 2. Pasadena: Salem Press, 1993. 7 vols.
Various authors. Critical Survey of Long Fiction. Volume 5. Salem Press. Englewood Cliffs, NJ. 1983.