Analysis Of Sherman Alexie's The Lone Ranger And Tonto Fist Fight In Heaven

Literature is defined as written works, especially those considered of superior or lasting artistic merit. For a textbook definition, this suffices. However, literature is much more than that, it’s a form of expression. In Sherman Alexie’s The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fist Fight in Heaven, we are able to see native communities in a different way than what we read about in articles or research papers. We’re given a different perspective on them which can help us understand these communities better. The first chapter, though it is early in the book, is able to support this idea. The first chapter titled “Every Little Hurricane” introduces us to Victor who becomes a main character in this collection of stories. Victor is violently woken up on New

Victor uses specific details of a hurricane to describe the rising tension during his parents’ party. “The two Indian raged across the room at each other. One was tall and heavy, the other was short, muscular. High-pressure and low-pressure fronts.” (2) Victor then goes on to compare curses to wood breaking and describes his father’s voice “…coming quickly and with force. It shook the walls of the house.” (2) As the storm escalated Victor depicts everyone who had begun to watch as simply as bystanders. “”They’re going to kill each other,” somebody yelled from an upstairs window. Nobody disagreed and nobody moved to change the situation. Witnesses. They were all witnesses and nothing more. For hundreds of years, Indians were witnesses to crimes of an epic scale.” (3) With this quote, he demonstrates a comparison between Native American experiences now and their painful history. “Victor’s uncles were in the midst of a misdemeanor that would remain one even if somebody was to die. One Indian killing another did not create a special kind of storm. This little kind of hurricane was generic. It didn’t even deserve a name.” (3) Here Alexie gives insight into how Victor

Though the fight between his uncles is painful and injurious, it ends and is only a minor setback in their true relationship. This is also supported by Alexie’s quote, “He could see his uncles slugging each other with such force that they had to be in love. Strangers would never want to hurt each other that badly.” (2) Victor recollects various memories he also compares to a storm, such as, Christmas Eve when he was five and his father was unable to buy gifts due to not having any money, he describes watching his father cry “…huge, gasping tears. Indian tears.” which “could have frozen solid in the severe reservation winters and shattered when they hit the floor. Sent millions of icy knives through the air, each specific and beautiful. Each dangerous and random.” (5) Another was a week before when he watched his father continuously check his empty wallet. Victor describes these memories as “tiny storms”. Even in his dreams, he compared rain and lightning to unemployment and poverty, commodity food to flash floods. In his nightmares, he would compare rain, from a leaking roof, falling into buckets, pots and pans to drums, hunger to a