in Sherman Alexie’s article entitled “The lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven” he walks down at the 7-eleven late at night to buy a creamsicle since it was too hot to sleep. the graveyard-shift cashier thought he was a robber. He did not mind the cashier’s attitude. the author understands his fear since he was once robbed while working at a 7-Eleven. Moreover, at the beginning of the story, the author lived in Seattle with his girlfriend who is actually white. however, they break up and he move back home to Spokane Indian reservation.…
Although the movie Smoke Signals and the book The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven share stories and scenes they differ in many way.…
John Heckewelder’s story tells about the Europeans arriving in a remarkably large ship that the Native Americans had never seen before. The curious ship along with a small canoe came to the shore. The Native Americans watched eagerly at a male person dressed in all red and other human beings with white skin coming on shore. They assumed this man was the Great or Supreme Being named Mannitto. The two parties met aground and exchanged greetings. The Europeans served up alcohol as an offering to the Native Americans. The Natives didn’t know what liquor was, therefore, they just smelled it and decided they would not take a drink. However one brave, great warrior of the Natives thought it would be offensive not to take a drink and finished up the…
Individuals that grow up with poverty in their lives end up committing actions that are out of desperation, enlarging their problems in the end. Alcohol quickly gets dragged into the picture when poverty comes up. In Sherman Alexie’s The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian poverty has its grasp on most members of the reservation, and many of them have drinking problems in order to deal with their fiscal troubles.…
3. Why does Alexie continually present the issue of alcoholism among American Indians regardless of tribe?…
Sherman Alexie born October 7, 1966, He grew up on the Spokane Indian Reservation and now lives in Seattle, Washington. Alexie is an American novelist, short story writer, poet, and filmmaker. Alexie performs most of his Poetry at poetry slams, festivals and other venues. Alexie has received an overwhelming amount of positivity for being able to make something tragic into something humorous. Much of Alexie's writing come from his experiences as a Native American with ancestry from several tribes. He grew up on the Spokane Indian Reservation and now lives in Seattle, Washington. His best-known book is The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven a collection of short stories. Alexie's book was made into a film called Smoke Signals where he…
In Sherman Alexie 's "The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven", the past is never really past. The aftershocks of 500 years of Native American persecution, oppression, and neglect continue to haunt the world of the reservation, in the form of alcoholism, poverty, and familial dysfunction. In spite of all this-or perhaps because of it-ancient tribal tradition/ritual lives on, if in a modified, more contemporary version. Throughout the story, the old ways-whether they be storytelling or vision seeking-serve to renew hope, and strengthen the bonds of the community. Thus, the past is both a destructive and a redemptive force within the novel. It is at once a source of continuing suffering and an antidote to that suffering.…
Reservation Blues begins with the tortured soul of a musician, and his guitar. The blues musician, a reanimated form of the late Robert Johnson, hands his enchanted instrument to Thomas Builds the Fire. This guitar possesses skill, precision and soul, no matter who its owner is. Johnson had given his soul to the Devil in order to acquire these powers. When Thomas was given this guitar, he too felt the music radiating with its strings. This power, compelled Thomas to create a band of his own. Comprised of two of his former bullies and two women from another tribe, joined together to form Coyote Springs. The band became successful, performing at other reservations and ultimately in New York City where they played for a record company. In a turn of events, the auditions went horribly. The guitar wouldn’t play and the magic that the band had once poured from their original songs was if it hadn’t existed. This was indicative of the plight of Native Americans in what is now the United States. When things seemed to turn up for them, everything tends to fall apart. The bitterness and resentment I imagine that Native Americans feel, is well represented in this book. Throughout this book the theme of escape was present through out each character’s back story. Sherman Alexie's characters illustrate a sort of bittersweet resentment for what it means to be Native American today living in a reservation. He discusses the ways that Native Americans try and escape the mold that has been cast for them, in an often overlooked portion of American life.…
The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven written by Sherman Alexie and A&P written by John Updike are stories that represent the social constraint’s felt by each of the protagonists. Alexie’s story and Updike’s story complement each other in their context and have a very similar theme. Alexie’s story is about a young man who is held down by the racial indifferences he has encountered throughout his life. In turn, these indifferences have caused distrust and a subtle hatred towards whites and authority figures. Victor, the protagonist of the story, makes references to the indifferences felt through the allusion and symbolism in the story. The representation of the symbolism and the interpretation used shows that Sherman himself is using his writing as a means to come to terms with these deep-rooted feelings. In Updike’s story, the tone is not as dark and dismal as Alexie’s, though there is a similarity in the context. A&P represents a young man who is tired of being oppressed by the mundane routines of life. The protagonist in this story sees his life passing him by as he works at a grocery market. The epiphany is realized and comes to light when three young women come into the store wearing nothing but bathing suits. The symbolism and allusion the writer uses in this story also signifies the repressed emotions of feeling trapped by the pressures that society has placed on him. Both stories connect on a thematic level which is the feeling of being held back by social constraints. However, these stories side by side each delivers different messages to the reader, and the allegory message of each story differs.…
The Native American Sioux have long standing traditions which predate the establishment of the United States, yet the American government stripped the majority of Native Americans from their lands and placed them on reservations where they can hardly carry out any of their customs. The motion picture, Thunderheart, tells an adaptation of the incident at Oglala, where the main protagonist, FBI agent Raymond Levoi, and his partner Frank Coutelle have to investigate the murder of a local pro-government Indian supporter. Thunderheart conveys three main images throughout the film which includes ceremonial tobacco pipe to show that American government agencies always hide their true intentions, and that Native Americans are stuck in a “third-world country” environment where they constantly battle a civil war.…
“The Black Drunkard” By Kevin Gilbert uses the context of Australian Aboriginal History to effectively portray the man’s belief that he no longer feels he is connected to his cultural identity because of societies treatment towards him and his people. Gilbert’s use of metonyms to class the Caucasian race as “whites” expresses centuries of suppression and conveys the emotional attachment the man has to his lost cultural identity. The use of repetition is also prominent throughout the poem. “It only hurts when I’m sober “; this communicates the drunkard’s loss of will to fight society’s grip on his identity. Although he despises what has happened to him and his people he does nothing proactive to fight it, rather, he uses the recurring motif of his flagon to escape from society’s grip block out reality. Through Gilbert’s use of techniques his portrayal of identity is one of cultural and individual suppression. It expresses the notion of identity being susceptible to society’s manipulation.…
In the novel Reservation Blues, most of the characters struggle with their identity at some point. Victor has an especially strong urge to rebel against his Native American heritage, which is apparent in his violent, arrogant demeanor and his obvious problem with alcohol. Victor is tied to his past and has trouble coping with his life as it is, and is in a constant battle with himself, his surroundings, and other people.…
In Sherman Alexi’s book The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven, he creates a series of vignettes that he uses to describe the culture of modern Native Americans living on reservations. One of his primary techniques he uses to help reproduce the emotional and cultural strife is to create two-dimensional characters that he uses as a back-drop for the rest of the image he paints with the rest of the stories. Victor’s dad and his friend Thomas are two examples, but Alexi creates one exceptionally emphatic character in a story called “A Train is an Order of Occurrence Designed to Lead to Some Result,” which recounts the tale of Samuel Builds-the-Fire and the exaggerated effects of alcohol on reservation Indians.…
“Alcohol is the anesthesia by which we endure the operation of life” (George Bernard Shaw). Throughout the young adult novel A Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway, Frederick Henry, the protagonist, goes through numerous struggles, be it physical aches that he retains from the war, or troubles with his mind that are caused by his complicated relationship with Catherine Barkley. However, despite all of his struggles, Henry finds consolation in alcohol, consuming copious amounts of it to carry him through his troubles. Thus, the idea that the symbol of alcohol represents the various ways in which man numbs the pain of his problems is made evident through Henry’s constant consumption of it.…
The concepts of alcohol abuse and dependence are very common among Alaska natives, and are associated with high rates of violence and health problems (Seale, Shellenberger & Spence, 2006, p.1). A survey by the Gallup organization found that 14.9% of American Indians & Alaska natives were dependent on alcohol and another 4.1 were alcohol abusers (p.2). Let’s look at those stats this way, that 14.9 is a huge number regarding their population size. Society been have overlooked this issue, alcohol research studies back in the day didn’t focus on native communities and excluding them in their studies (p.6). Alcohol was introduced to the native communities by Russian fur traders and whales, who took advantage of the native individuals when they were intoxicated (p.7). The men were said to be the most influenced and so they started getting addicted and it started affecting their work (p.8). For example, as one native women stated in an interview “Spring is our time of gathering for the winter like hunting and fishing, but the men stayed drunk and we didn’t stock food for the winter” (p.8). Violence and the factors that come with it also emerges when an individual or community start to abuse…