Humor is an effective way to grab the audience’s attention when speaking and it is a major tool when trying to engage a reader in a piece of writing. In a series of short stories composed by Sherman Alexie, Humor is a primary tool used in a majority of his pieces. According to Coulombe, In The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven, Sherman Alexie produces humor through his characters in order to allow them to “display strengths and hide weaknesses, to expose prejudice and avoid realities, and to create bonds and construct barricades” (Coulombe 300). Sherman Alexie uses various types of humor to show the oppression and injustice the native American culture have faced in the past. Alexie uses different forms of humor throughout both This …show more content…
In This is What It Means to Say Phoenix, Arizona, Alexie introduces a form of satirical humor between the characters. One night on the reservation Thomas-Builds-the-Fire is rushing Thomas to go see the fireworks for the fourth of July. Thomas later realizes and says this to victor, “It’s strange how us Indians celebrate the fourth of July. It ain’t like it was our independence everybody was fighting for” (Alexie 284). Its funny how Alexie incorporates this piece of humor in the text because originally the Native Americans were screwed over by the US Government but now they are found celebrating the independence day for the Americans because of the fireworks. Another form of satirical humor that Alexie uses in this short story is when Thomas is giving his condolences to Victor for the loss of his father. Victor is quick to react and is curious on how Thomas received the information so quickly. Thomas then replies with the witty remark, “I heard It on the wind. I heard it from the birds. I felt it in the sunlight. Also, your mother was just in here crying” (Alexie 283). This quote from the story shows how Alexie incorporates humor because by hearing Thomas speak it almost sounds like he knew about the death of Victors father from a vision or a dream, something mysterious but in fact he only knew because he saw victors mother crying. In the short story The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven, also includes a use of satirical humor. This is in regards to the first page where junior is in the convenience store. Ever since he entered the convenience store the clerk suspected he was up to no good because of his physical appearance. However, junior was just a regular person who was looking to buy some ice cream on a hot day. To overcome the situation
I read the book Soldier X by Don L. Wulffson that takes place during the world war II period. The main character of the book is a 16 year old German boy named Erik Brandt. Although Erik lives in Germany he is also half Russian and speaks Russian very well. Erik does not want to be a part of Hilters Nazi army during world war II but he is forced to fight on the side of the Nazis. During one battle of the war is he forced under a tank during a large scale battle with the Russians. He has no choice but to change clothes and gear with the Russian soldier and be now becomes part of the Russian army. He spends some time in the Russian army and then he gets wounded. He gets send to a Russian hospital and meets a nurse named Tamara. He falls in love with her but then one day the hospital is bombed and he has to escape with her and out of Russia. The story comes to an end with Erik and Tamara escaping Europe and making to over the Atlantic ocean to the United States to have kids and live the rest of there lives.
In the short stories “A Drug Called Tradition,” “The Approximate Size of My Favorite Tumor,” and “The Only Traffic Signal on the Reservation Doesn’t Flash Red Anymore” collected in The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven, author Sherman Alexie uses humor to reflect the life on the Spokane Reservation. In “A Drug Called Tradition,” the story starts with a joke by having Thomas sit down inside a refrigerator in response to Junior’s comment as to why the refrigerator is empty. The Indians are having a party hosted by Thomas, who gets a lot of money from a corporation for leasing some of his land. Alexie’s three second selves, Victor, Junior, and Thomas, later go to the Benjamin Lake and use the drug that Victor brings with him. In “The Approximate Size of My Favorite Tumor,” Jimmy Many Horses, who suffers from terminal cancer, humorously describes his tumors to his wife, Norma, who cannot bear Jimmy’s humor and leaves him. At the end, Norma comes back to Jimmy because the person she lives with is too serious. In “The Only Traffic Signal on the Reservation Doesn’t Flash Red Anymore,” Victor and Adrian talk about the basketball stars on the reservation, hoping that someone on the reservation can resist alcohol and develop his or her basketball skills to be a successful ballplayer. The function of Alexie’s humor shifts throughout his stories. In “A Drug Called Tradition,” Alexie’s humor effectively accomplishes one of his goals by obliging readers to reconsider their concepts, while his humor helps his characters improve their situations in “The Approximate Size of My Favorite Tumor.” In “The Only Traffic Signal on the Reservation Doesn’t Flash Red Anymore,” humor mitigates the characters’ pain and despair. One common function hum...
We have all been alienated, stereotyped, and felt the general loss of control at one point in our lives, weather you are black, native American, Hispanic, or white. Race, skin color or nationality does not matter. This is the reoccurring theme in both of the text, “Women Hollering Creek” and “The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven”. Women Hollering Creek is a story by Sandra Cisneros a noted Mexican novelist, poet, short story writer, and essayist (b. 1954). It is a story of a young Mexican girl Cleofilas, who with visions of grandeur leaves her family to marry a man she barely knows and begin a new life across the border in the United States. The second short story is by Sherman Alexie (b. 1966) who was born on a reservation to Native American parents. This story is about the struggles of a Native American man who tries to disprove the stereotypical view society has of Native Americans, and to fit into society outside of the reservation. In one way or another, both characters in these texts have experienced being singled out and made to feel as though they did not fit in.
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...
In “Turkeys in the Kitchen,” an essay written by Dave Barry, humor is used as an aid to make a point about the usefulness of men after Women’s Liberation. “A Plague of Tics,” a personal narrative written by David Sedaris, uses a different kind of humor to explain the reasoning behind his behavior. Through these two essays and their author’s personal experiences, humor is presented as a device to captivate reader’s attention and declare the author’s intended meaning.
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
Dark humor makes light of a serious and often dreadful situation and it is something that Alexie’s novels are famous for. In The Approximate Size of His Favorite Humor: Sherman Alexie's Comic Connections and Disconnections in The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven, Joseph L. Coulumbe writes an article about Sherman Alexie’s Comic Connections and Disconnections. “He uses humor—or his characters use humor—to reveal injustice, protect self-esteem, heal wounds, and create bonds”(Coulumbe 94). In Alexie’s The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight In Heaven, there is a short story entitled “The Fun House” where Alexie reveals some of the personal struggles of women living on the reservation. In this story Alexie reveals some of the disrespect and injustice women on the reservation have to endure. The story features Victor’s aunt Nezzy who is watching television with her husband and s...
Steve Almond’s “Funny is the New Deep” talks of the role that comedy has in our current society, and most certainly, it plays a huge role here. Namely, through what Almond [Aristotle?] calls the “comic impulse”, we as a people can speak of topics that would otherwise make many of uncomfortable. Almond deems the comic impulse as the most surefire way to keep heavy situations from becoming too foreboding. The comic impulse itself stems from our ability and unconscious need to defend and thus contend with the feeling of tragedy. As such, instead of rather forcing out humor, he implies that humor is something that is not consciously forced out from an author, but instead is more of a subconscious entity, coming out on its own. Almond emphasizes
The author uses many examples of humorous things in the story, like irony. An example is everyone thought Casey was an awesome baseball player, as well as himself. In the end it turned out that he wasn't as good as everyone thought and or hoped.
Humor is a core value of Native American life. It can also be considered a form of survival in some ways, which is why most of their humor can best be defined as survival humor. “As expressed by survivors of tragedy, nonvanishing Native Americans, this humor transcends the void, questions fatalism, and outlasts suffering….At cultural ground zero, it means that Indians are still here, laughing to survive” (Lincoln 45-96). Louise Erdrich’s Tracks exposes this power of humor being able to affect ones experiences through the characters of Nanapush and Fleur.
Tim O'Brien is confused about the Vietnam War. He is getting drafted into it, but is also protesting it. He gets to boot camp and finds it very difficult to know that he is going off to a country far away from home and fighting a war that he didn't believe was morally right. Before O'Brien gets to Vietnam he visits a military Chaplin about his problem with the war. "O'Brien I am really surprised to hear this. You're a good kid but you are betraying you country when you say these things"(60). This says a lot about O'Brien's views on the Vietnam War. In the reading of the book, If I Die in a Combat Zone, Tim O'Brien explains his struggles in boot camp and when he is a foot soldier in Vietnam.
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.
The somber tone of the story Is revealed through the satirical comments made by the
Humor is more than just amusing entertainment to pass the time. Though jokes and witty banter can be shallow, humor can go deeper than surface level to convey messages to audiences who would otherwise be close-minded about certain ideas. Humor is a great tool to get audiences to change the way they think, feel, and act. In “Saying Goodbye to Yang,” Alexander Weinstein uses humor to criticize some of society’s faults such as the way it has become heavily reliant on technology, racially insensitive, and judgmental.
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