Theme Of Alcoholism In The Lone Ranger And Tonto Fistfight In Heaven

Have you ever lost someone dear to you because of alcohol, well for Native Americans it happens regularly. In Sherman Alexie’s book The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven the main character Victor a Native American child and his struggles with being native America. Alcoholism can make you feel alone in social situations because it might make you sensitive to sound while you're drunk and make you possibly more aggressive which can lead to people keeping their distance from you because it can make people feel alone in social setting
Alexie uses Victor’s character to display how alcoholism causes isolation and causes individuals to leave their community. Alexie then shows how responsibility for another being can break the cycle.
---Mental isolation
Victor’s parents during the party were isolated by their drinking. Victor searches for his parents and he finds them in a bedroom asleep and alone. “Victor lay between his parents, his alcoholic and dreamless parents, his mother and father… The people outside seemed so far away, so strange and imaginary.” The quote shows when he lies with his parents who were drinking are now alone and when he is with them in that room everyone feels nonexistent and miles away. Although his parents are still present, in a sense they left Victor and their community.
Victor’s father

Victor is remembering his father leading up to him leaving and the time of him leaving. “He stopped talking as much, stopped drinking as much. He didn’t do much of anything except ride that bike and listen to music… it was my father who climbed on his motorcycle, waved to me as I stood in the window, and rode away.” These quotes display that while his father starts to drink less he also talks less and is home less which eventually causes fighting between Victor's parents and victor's dad leaving. Although there is all this sadness some have overcome