A Community’s People, Places, and Conflicts: Alexie’s View of the Spokane Reservation
Molly Lee
IWC 100
Erik Kornkven
6 February 2013
A Community’s People, Places, and Conflicts: Alexie’s View of the Spokane Reservation
In The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven, Sherman Alexie tells the stories of a Native American culture trying to fit into the modern world. These stories primarily focus on the conflicts that exist within his community for various reasons, including broken personal and family relationships, fistfights, arguments, destruction of property, lack of money, and youth versus elderly perspectives on life. Several of the conflicts in these stories are escalated through the use and abuse of alcohol and other drugs. While Sherman Alexie’s collection of short stories can be read for entertainment, it can also be used to understand the community that Alexie grew up in. By looking at the characters, places, and conflicts of the Spokane Indian Reservation, as seen in Alexie’s stories, one can see that this community has its struggles and times where it drifts apart, but the heroes and traditions will bring the people of the community together in times of trial and times of separation.
Through Thomas-Builds-the-Fire, the reader can see a character who represents the traditions of the past by the telling of his stories. By looking at how others interact with Thomas, one can see how the community relates with the past. In “This is What it Means to Say Phoenix, Arizona,” Thomas explains his belief that each person is given “one thing by which our lives are measured, one determination,” and that his determination in life is “the stories which can change or not change the world” (74). Although Thomas himself was proud of his stories, not many would stop to listen. Even so, “He kept telling them long after people had stopped listening” (74). When people stopped listening, Thomas asked, “‘Whatever happened to the tribal ties, the sense of the community?”’ (74). His audience, his fellow tribe members, would not always want to be
IWC 100
Erik Kornkven
6 February 2013
A Community’s People, Places, and Conflicts: Alexie’s View of the Spokane Reservation
In The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven, Sherman Alexie tells the stories of a Native American culture trying to fit into the modern world. These stories primarily focus on the conflicts that exist within his community for various reasons, including broken personal and family relationships, fistfights, arguments, destruction of property, lack of money, and youth versus elderly perspectives on life. Several of the conflicts in these stories are escalated through the use and abuse of alcohol and other drugs. While Sherman Alexie’s collection of short stories can be read for entertainment, it can also be used to understand the community that Alexie grew up in. By looking at the characters, places, and conflicts of the Spokane Indian Reservation, as seen in Alexie’s stories, one can see that this community has its struggles and times where it drifts apart, but the heroes and traditions will bring the people of the community together in times of trial and times of separation.
Through Thomas-Builds-the-Fire, the reader can see a character who represents the traditions of the past by the telling of his stories. By looking at how others interact with Thomas, one can see how the community relates with the past. In “This is What it Means to Say Phoenix, Arizona,” Thomas explains his belief that each person is given “one thing by which our lives are measured, one determination,” and that his determination in life is “the stories which can change or not change the world” (74). Although Thomas himself was proud of his stories, not many would stop to listen. Even so, “He kept telling them long after people had stopped listening” (74). When people stopped listening, Thomas asked, “‘Whatever happened to the tribal ties, the sense of the community?”’ (74). His audience, his fellow tribe members, would not always want to be
Cited: Alexie, Sherman. The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven. New York: Grove Press, 2005. Print