Comparing The Lone Ranger And Tonto Fistfight In Heaven

In “The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven”, Sherman Alexie presents a short story collection that centers on the Indian reservation. As Coulombe (94) depicts, most of Alexie's short stories in the collection frequently relate to scenes in the other stories, and this makes the collection seem like a novel. In a bid to analyze the works of the author the paper is going to focus on one of the stories in the collection, which is “The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fist Fight in Heaven”. The story has the same title as the book itself something surprising and confusing to the readers. While an individual’s skin color or origin does not portray their character, the Whites in this story viewed themselves superior over the Indians; thus, racism and

injustice practices among the two groups transpired.
The story begins with the narrator giving the reader a sense of who he is and how he sees things through the male character. Throughout history, native Americans have been subjugated by the whites. Through stereotype, dominance, false promises, and betrayal by the dominant culture have impacted and shaped the lifestyle of modern Indians. As the character and his fellow Indians yielded to alcohol addiction, devastation from loss of culture, poverty, unemployment, tradition, and identity is evident. This gave many native Americans and the author a new perspective of the world. In this particular short story, the narrator begins by “Imagining the Reservation,” which gives the reader the insight as to how the character sees the nature of the reservation. He says, “Survival equals Anger X Imagination. Imagination is the only weapon on the reservation” (p.150), meaning that he believes his people have to have those two factors in order to keep their character and traditions alive in situations where they may become extinct. Alexie believes that Native Americans should be emotionally and psychologically ready for the burden that’s been placed upon them.
“The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fist Fight in Heaven” presents the image of real Indians in the world, the formally-held stereotypes that are used to form a new as well as unique identity. Besides, Alexie tries to reinvent some of the traditional ways of Indians. In this short story, the narrator indicates that Indians are people with a double identity. They are not sure of how to report themselves to most of their traditions, including how to react towards it, what is less important as well as the most important. Most notably, many people have come up to talk about “The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fist Fight in Heaven", and one of them is Coulombe in this writing “The Approximate Size of His Favourite Humour: Sherman Alexie's Comic Connections and Disconnections”.
In his study, Coulombe (97) shows the reader that the author of “The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fist Fight in Heaven” has critics. Most remarkably these critics assert that the writer avoids the social as well as a moral responsibility to sensitize the White audience and it is because of his humor. For example, one critic known as Louis Owens wrote that "Alexie's humor deflects any lesson in morality" (Coulombe 94). On the other hand, Coulombe urges that the author uses humor for constructive purposes since it is used to expose the unfair practices such as injustice and the solutions to such social concerns. The author seems to go against the assumptions of the critics as he tries to give a clear description of how humor is effectively applied by the author and the characters in “The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fist Fight in Heaven”.
The whites have it all while the Natives struggle to make a living since they never had good education. Primarily, it is all because of the difference in skin colour, a factor that misguides many people in society as they tend to think it carries any substance. All people ought to be treated the same way since physical appearance has nothing to do with how one should be treated or even be seen by others in the community. Regardless of being white or a person of color, all human beings are equal and capable of accomplishing the same tasks. In the short story "The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fist Fight in Heaven” the author shows this clearly through representing a huge difference between the two groups. For example, they lived their lives differently and imitating the practices of another such as white beliefs was a sign of betrayal.
In the story “The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fist Fight in Heaven” Alexie narrates that the white cashier was scared of him as he thought he was going to be shot or even rob him.

The scene portrays that people in Seattle saw Indians as criminals, hostile, and aggressive. Accordingly, they only wanted to live with fellow whites in the city, and good enough the Indians knew that. For example, the narrator confesses that when he went back to the reservation, his parents were not surprised to see him as they knew he was bound to come back (Alexie 186). They all believed that if a person went to Seattle, he would not take long out there. Therefore, “The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fist Fight in Heaven” depicts that the whites were to stay away from the

Indians.
The narrator also reveals that the relationship of whites and non-whites was not easy during the days he wrote the story. The assumption is significant and justified as most fist fights were traditionally used in settling longstanding misunderstandings. The mere fact that Alexie has several fights with his girlfriend implies that the interaction between Whites and Native Americans has for long existed. Coulombe (94) points out that the conflict between the two characters, The Lone Ranger and Tonto represents the historical infringement of whites on the so-called reservation. “The reservation,” Velie and Alexie (163) write, “represents that whites have long violated the native culture, which is the origin of the narrator Alexie.” For these reasons, the short story made several depictions with that of the long misunderstanding between the whites and Native Americans are no exception.
Velie and Alexie (9) contend that the narrator sought to depict Tonto as a character of racial segregation who is a mere helper of the ideally superior “white” Lone Ranger. Alexie brings out Tonto to the readers as an individual who is spiritually connected to nature and knows less English, which are all common stereotypes of Native Americans. Furthermore, when the author talks about him, an Indian native and his white girl always become mad at each other, he brings out the longstanding feud between Whites and Natives (Heongyun 163). The narrator also heightens that he finally breaks up with his girl and moves back to the “Indian reservation,” which reflects the historical misunderstandings between the two racial groups. Therefore, the scene makes it clear that the whites cannot stay with non-whites forever and through dreams, it was revealed to the narrator.
As Coulombe (95) puts it, Natives have long been subjugated by Whites. When the narrator presents the reservation as characterized by alcohol addiction, unemployment, and poverty, it is quite evident to his readers that these vices shaped the lifestyle of contemporary Indians. The narrator tries to bring it to the attention of his readers that Natives view the world differently, including himself being characterized by prejudice, White domination, as well as betrayal. In “The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fist Fight in Heaven”, Alexie Sherman offers the reader insight about life on the reservations. The narrator emphasizes that imagination is literally the only weapon of Natives within the Indian reservation. Therefore, Native Indians on the reservations had to firmly believe in visions for survival.
Velie and Alexie (9) contend that the Native people need to be emotionally prepared for the possible burden that is brought to them. According to their history, the annexation of the Native land left them powerless to a particular extent. The fact that Native Americans do not possess the same privileges and values as whites, they did not hesitate giving up their land when it was proposed. The narrator wants to communicate that so many hardships have been subjected among Native Americans, thus, affecting their values and cultures. For example, in “The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fist Fight in Heaven," it is seen that an Indian finding a job is not easy. In fact, hearing an Indian say that they do not know what they want to become is not surprising. Given the above, to overcome the challenges among the natives and white people’s emotions ought to be prepared efficiently.
Despite the fact that the author was biased at one point in his writing, but he was able to achieve the primary purpose. Alexie was able to convey his message to his audience through by embracing of simple English and precise words. The sentence structure was good that the reader would read and understand the meaning in each of the paragraphs. The most exciting thing about the story is that it was short and this means that anyone can read it at any time, unlike long stories that are prone to mistakes, thus, boring and loss of meaning. Ultimately, the author embraced several rhetorical strategies, for example, he used examples to emphasize his points. For these reasons, the author was successful in his writing as he achieved his primary goal of communicating.
In a nutshell, racism practiced by the whites against non-whites has been evident for several years now.

The whites see people of color as outcasts as they believe that color plays a vital role in describing who one is in a given society. The Indians were identified as hostile, criminals and worthless since they were hopeless and many did not know what the future held for them. The author of “The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fist Fight in Heaven” wrote the book with the aim of informing people about the injustice, racism and discrimination that the Indians were exposed by the Whites. The dreams of the narrator played a vital role in the story as they gave him direction on what to do next. Therefore, the narrator believed so much in dreams, and he always took them as being

real.