The identity issues that so many Native Americans face are often addressed and investigated by scholars, but rarely does the average person get an insight on this matter with the quality found in Sherman Alexie’s 1991 The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven. Alexie’s life experiences as a Native American allow for a very authentic retelling that makes academic studies seem sterile in comparison. Through this story, the main character recounts many experiences he’s had relevant to his identity, spanning things such as discrimination, relationships, and jobs. The theme of this story is the identity crisis of the Native Americans. The primary way Alexie communicates this theme is through the way he characterizes Victor Joseph. More specifically, he gives us a character who is directionless, and struggling to find his purpose, which serves as an accurate metaphor for the state of the Native American
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In the chronologically earliest part of the story, Victor is something of an alcoholic and has a hard time holding down a job. This is something many Native Americans stereotypically struggle with and Victor Joseph is the stereotypical Native American in many ways. This allows him to be a symbol, representing all Native Americans and himself simultaneously. He had a girlfriend, but he left her after having a particularly disturbing dream in which he was “a minor war chief,” where he saw a massive war between the Indians and the whites, climaxing when “[t]hree mounted soldiers played polo with a dead Indian woman’s head” (Alexie 17). After moving back to the reservation and contemplating the direction he wanted to take his life in, he got a job in a high school and stopped drinking. This progression from a poorly adjusted individual to an average, contributing member of society is probably the future Alexie envisions for the Native American
In the chronologically earliest part of the story, Victor is something of an alcoholic and has a hard time holding down a job. This is something many Native Americans stereotypically struggle with and Victor Joseph is the stereotypical Native American in many ways. This allows him to be a symbol, representing all Native Americans and himself simultaneously. He had a girlfriend, but he left her after having a particularly disturbing dream in which he was “a minor war chief,” where he saw a massive war between the Indians and the whites, climaxing when “[t]hree mounted soldiers played polo with a dead Indian woman’s head” (Alexie 17). After moving back to the reservation and contemplating the direction he wanted to take his life in, he got a job in a high school and stopped drinking. This progression from a poorly adjusted individual to an average, contributing member of society is probably the future Alexie envisions for the Native American