Sherman Alexie, a Spokane and Coeur d’Alene American Indian, spent his childhood years on the Spokane reservation in Washington but left for high school as well as college with mainly students of the native American origin. The reservation evidently made a vast effect on Alexie’s life as it is demonstrated from one of his earlier book, the 1993 short story compilation The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven. Through this novel, Sherman Alexie forces his audience to question popular culture, identity, humor, as well as history. American Indian identity, as demonstrated in his book, is constructed on the stereotypes existing in TV, films, as well as other media in the popular culture of the US. These stereotypes deter the American Indian …show more content…
identity by displaying them with unachievable objectives, but Sherman displays the characters in his book The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven with these stereotypes to mark them in popular art, music, and literature and demand for transformation or change. The paper examines the stereotypical images about Indians as heroes as depicted by Alexie in his book, The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven, as well as other literatures. To begin with, in the works of Alexie, American Indians are overstretched to transform current circumstance as well as the forthcoming by returning to the land and to the ancient ethos of the Spokane tribe.
Regrettably, the terrestrial to go back to remains the reservation, a prompt of forced relocation as well as domination. As per Alexie through the viewpoints of the woman character Norma Many Horses in his collection of short stories The Lone Ranger and Tonto, the ancient culture of the tribe of Spokane expires with each elder, a prompt of a burdened culture and forced integration. As a result, to maintain an image of tradition, Sherman Alexie displays his characters with stereotypical traits. Through giving his firm, distinctive characters’ stereotypical characteristics of the American Indians a reader would get in his texts, or even in a museum, Sherman energetically challenges the several types of racism and creates a lot of awareness among his audiences that these racist stereotypes are still in existence. Upon being aware about the death of Victor’s father, Thomas mockingly responds. “I heard it on the wind. I heard it from the birds. I felt it in the sunlight. As well, your mother was just in her crying” (Alexie 61). Here, Thomas puts on the role of an ancient narrator, and tries to ease Victor with funniness, by while doing so, he as well fits the ancient trope by stereotypically denoting to nature as a truth-revealer. Despite the fact that through Thomas, Alexie pokes fun at this trope, he as well uses it as a vehicle for expressing issues of reservation, as in the instance with James in The Lone Ranger and
Tonto. As the case of tradition with James forms a likely constructive outcome, Sherman as well, energetically discloses that stereotypes are damaging to the identity of American Indian. In his book The Lone Ranger and Tonto, the character Victor drives past Thomas and rests on the window to ask him to Benjamin Lake “to do this fresh drug I got. It will be very fucking Indian. Spiritual shit” (Alexie 14). At this point, the stereotype of ancient Indian obstructs identity. Because of the fact that Victor, Seymour, as well as Thomas have the image of an Indian doing drugs as a masculine and spiritual action, they feel that they need to take part in this customary ritual so that they can get visions and as a results have a stronger claim to the identity of an American Indian. As per Grassian Daniel “Indians on the reservation have been led amiss by the popular image of American belligerent masculine Indian heroes as the essence of masculinity, a nearly unrealizable standard that frequently leads male to hopelessness as well as drug abuse” (79).
In this essay, McFarland discusses Native American poetry and Sherman Alexie’s works. He provides an overview of Alexie’s writing in both his poems and short stories. A brief analysis of Alexie’s use of humor is also included.
Sherman Alexie grew up in Wellpinit, Washington as a Spokane/Coeur d’Alene tribal member (Sherman Alexie). He began his personal battle with substance abuse in 1985 during his freshman year at Jesuit Gonzaga University. The success of his first published work in 1990 incentivized Alexie to overcome his alcohol abuse. “In his short-story and poetry collections, Alexie illuminates the despair, poverty, and alcoholism that often shape the lives of Native Americans living on reservations” (Sherman Alexie). When developing his characters, Alexie often gives them characteristics of substance abuse, poverty and criminal behaviors in an effort to evoke sadness with his readers. Alexie utilizes other art forms, such as film, music, cartoons, and the print media, to bombard mainstream distortion of Indian culture and to redefine Indianness. “Both the term Indian and the stereotypical image are created through histories of misrepresentation—one is a simulated word without a tribal real and the other an i...
The four Indians, Lone Ranger, Ishmael, Robinson Crusoe, and Hawkeye, are based off icons of the white people in the colonial era. These pieces of literature have an underlying tone of imperialism (Maithreyi 3). By trying to fix the world they try and revere the effects in which colonization had on the Blackfoot people. They begin this by changing the ending of the popular western hollywood movie. The movie portrays a stereotypical view of the indigenous culture. King hopes to dispel the ideas of these stereotypes and does so by changing the movies. Alberta is introduced by teaching her students about the history of Fort Marion. The four Indians are imprisoned in Fort Marion, but unlike history, they escape (Gomez-Vega 13). The 4 Indians try to fix the effects of colonialism on Lionel. ““By the time Lionel was six, he knew what he wanted to be. John Wayne. Not the actor, but the character,” who was the idealized westernized man (King 241). This presence of western ideas in Lionel left no room for a Native future. The 4 Indians set out to revise these ideas in Lionel. As Lionel accepts his culture, he stand up again George Morningstar at the Sun Dance to protect his culture, resembling and revising history (Totter 13-14). In addition to trying to fix the world, the 4 Indians narrate the creation stories. To the Indians, how the creation stories are important. In the novel the 4 Indians
One of the hardest realities of being a minority is that the majority has a thousand ways to hurt anyone who is part of a minority, and they have but two or three ways to defend themselves. In Sherman Alexie’s short story The Toughest Indian in the World, Roman Gabriel Fury is a member of the Native American minority that makes up less than two percent of the total United States population (1.2 percent to be exact). This inherent disadvantage of being a minority, along with various cultural factors, influences the conflicted character of Roman Gabriel Fury and his attitudes toward the white majority. Through his use of strong language, demanding tone, and vibrant colors, Roman Gabriel Fury is able to reveal his complex feelings about growing up Indian in a predominately white world.
Sherman Alexie could possibly be the most realistic man on the planet. In his book, The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fist Fight in Heaven, Alexie uses short stories to paint a picture of his childhood growing up on an Indian reservation. Through a web of characters a saddening image is created with overriding themes of alcoholism, racism, distrust and failure. This image has become greatly controversial because of the stereotypical way it portrays the Spokane Indian tribe. Even though Alexie is himself a Spokane some may say that he was out of line in the depiction of his people; however, Alexie is simply a realist relaying information from his upbringing to the world. He tells not only of the bad but also of the good times on the reservation,
There are many influences that end up making stereotype what it is today. In reading Charles Ramirez-Berg article on “Categorizing the Other: Stereotypes and Stereotyping” gave wonderful insight to every element that is connected to stereotyping. Ramirez-Berg sums up stereotyping into three terms category making, ethnocentrism and prejudice. “A stereotype is the result of this process and can be defined as a negative generalization used by an in-group (Us) about an out-group (Them). Lippmann called these mental constructs “picture in our heads” (Ramirez-Berg pg. 15). In developing a bad stereotype there are two elements that take place. One is in having your own group be in the center of everything. Second is judging others in differences from your own. “Stereotyping regarding the Latina/o population in the United States seem to prevail in our public discourse, are promulgated by media, and go mainly unchallenged throughout our educational systems” (Rodriguez pg. 10). The Hollywood films caused the construction of whites stereotyping racial minorities. Films degraded Latinos and presented the
Adjusting to another culture is a difficult concept, especially for children in their school classrooms. In Sherman Alexie’s, “Indian Education,” he discusses the different stages of a Native Americans childhood compared to his white counterparts. He is describing the schooling of a child, Victor, in an American Indian reservation, grade by grade. He uses a few different examples of satire and irony, in which could be viewed in completely different ways, expressing different feelings to the reader. Racism and bullying are both present throughout this essay between Indians and Americans. The Indian Americans have the stereotype of being unsuccessful and always being those that are left behind. Through Alexie’s negativity and humor in his essay, it is evident that he faces many issues and is very frustrated growing up as an American Indian. Growing up, 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.
Culture has the power and ability to give someone spiritual and emotional distinction which shapes one's identity. Without culture society would be less and less diverse. Culture is what gives this earth warmth and color that expands across miles and miles. The author of “The School Days of an Indian Girl”, Zitkala Sa, incorporates the ideals of her Native American culture into her writing. Similarly, Sherman Alexie sheds light onto the hardships he struggled through growing up on the Spokane Indian Reservation in his book The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven in a chapter titled “Indian Education”. While both Zitkala Sa and Sherman Alexie were Native Americans, and take on a similar persona showcasing their native culture in their text, the two diverge in the situations that they face. Zitkala Sa’s writing takes on a more timid shade as she is incorporated into the “white” culture, whereas Alexie more boldly and willingly immerses himself into the culture of the white man. One must leave something in order to realize how
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.
American Indian students make up less than one percent of college or higher education students, and less than one third of American Indian students are continuing education after high school. In his memoir essay The Joy of Reading and Writing: Superman and Me, Sherman Alexie recalls learning to read, growing up on a reservation where he was expected to fail, and working tirelessly to read more and become a writer. Sherman Alexie had to overcome stereotypes in order to be accepted as smart and become a writer, which shows that it is harder for people who are stereotyped to be successful because they have less opportunities.
Hardship is everywhere but Sherman Alexie’s “The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-time Indian” is an amusing and intelligent novel that clearly provides the reader with perfect examples of poverty and friendship on an Indian reservation. Alexie incorporates those examples through the point of view and experiences of a fourteen year old boy named Arnold Spirit Jr.
Alexie Sherman’s, “The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven” displays the complications and occasional distress in the relationship between Native-American people and the United States. Despite being aboriginal inhabitants of America, even in present day United States there is still tension between the rest of the country, specifically mainstream white America, and the Native-American population. Several issues regarding the treatment of Native-Americans are major problems presently. Throughout the narrative, several important symbols are mentioned. The title itself represents the struggles between mainstream America and Native-Americans. The theme of racism, violence, and prejudice is apparent throughout the story. Although the author
Native Americans experienced five hundred years of violent subjugation under European imperialism, and as a result, many Native American reservations have since struggled to maintain communal composure and identity. Five hundred years of cultural trauma and oppression has ravaged many Native American reservations into sites of cultural paralysis, where a moment of hope is inevitably followed by failure and drinking in a seemingly inescapable cycle. Published by Native American author Sherman Alexie in 1993, more than twenty years after the American Indian Movement, The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fist Fight in Heaven depicts the struggled lives within the Spokane Native
Although, many of the Native Americans in his stories struggle with alcohol. It was their coping method to cover up for the emptiness within their souls. People of Spokane struggle with adjusting to the modern lifestyle of the “white people” and many are living in poverty, without jobs, and using alcohol to cure there problems. In the short story Because My Father Always Said He Was the Only Indian Who Saw Jimi Hendrix Play “The Star-Spangled Banner” at Woodstock, Alexie wrote “A hundred years ago, a Indian marriage was broken easily. The woman or man just picked up all their possessions and left the tipi. There were no arguments, no discussions. Now, Indians fight their way to the end, holding on to the last good thing, because our whole lives have to do with survival (Alexie, The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven).” Alexie would speak about the Native American character’s desire to be warriors in the context of his
The book focuses mainly on showing the degraded Indian society, where everyone lives poor reservation life's that are influenced by the alcohol consumption. Alexie’s uses his own experiences, such as him growing up on the Spokane Indian Reservation to show the challenges Native Americans go through while leaving in the reservation. Throughout the book, it is clear that Alexi's dislikes white people because whites portrayed themselves as the dominant culture that makes false promises to shape the lifestyle of the modern Indians. Sherman Alexie's, author of The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven writes this book for those aren't part of the Indiana identity. The message that he wants to give those who aren't part of the Native American