“We’ll kick your asses next year,” Rowdy wrote back. “And you’ll cry like the little faggot you are.”
“I might be a faggot,” I wrote back, “But I’m the faggot who beat you.”
“Ha-Ha,” Rowdy wrote.
Now that might sound just like a series of homophobic insults...I was a happy faggot! (Alexie 198-199).
In both of these instances, Alexie is using a joking, sarcastic, and humoristic tone to veil the deep emotional bond between Rowdy and Junior. Through the psychoanalytical lense, for the boys to openingly share feelings of love incites high anxiety and fear, especially fear of homosexuality. As noted, the first passage uses the word “dickward,” a word associated with the male genitalia, and the second passage uses the word “faggot,” a derogatory …show more content…
This only adds to the problems he and his wife already have, but as a writer Alexie uses this humor with purpose. In Joseph L. Coulombe’s article, “The Approximate Size of His Favorite Humor: Sherman Alexie's Comic Connections and Disconnections in "The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven" originally published in American Indian Quarterly, he points out that how the use of humor is a “coping mechanism”(1). Jimmy makes fun of his condition by describing his largest and most favorite tumor as a baseball which not only upsets his wife but masks his anxiety associated with his impending death. Coulombe confirms, “his humor suggests the extent to which Jimmy will go to try to protect himself from real pain: he does not want to face the horror of his cancer” (1). Upon further examination using the psychoanalytic lens, Jimmy’s use of humor develops unconsciously within the id to reduce tension and anxiety associated with death. Jimmy is trying to use humor to make light of the situation; thus, he is trying to make himself and his wife feel better. . In fact, Davies reiterates this idea by saying, “The enactment of humor (e.g., telling a joke) is often tied to the hope for a response that enhances or diminishes self-esteem” (Davies 9). The humor may not have worked for Jimmy’s wife, but he was using it to alleviate his conscious and unconscious fears. Students, and others, share this same tendency and can easily relate to Alexie’s
“I might be a faggot,” I wrote back, “But I’m the faggot who beat you.”
“Ha-Ha,” Rowdy wrote.
Now that might sound just like a series of homophobic insults...I was a happy faggot! (Alexie 198-199).
In both of these instances, Alexie is using a joking, sarcastic, and humoristic tone to veil the deep emotional bond between Rowdy and Junior. Through the psychoanalytical lense, for the boys to openingly share feelings of love incites high anxiety and fear, especially fear of homosexuality. As noted, the first passage uses the word “dickward,” a word associated with the male genitalia, and the second passage uses the word “faggot,” a derogatory …show more content…
This only adds to the problems he and his wife already have, but as a writer Alexie uses this humor with purpose. In Joseph L. Coulombe’s article, “The Approximate Size of His Favorite Humor: Sherman Alexie's Comic Connections and Disconnections in "The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven" originally published in American Indian Quarterly, he points out that how the use of humor is a “coping mechanism”(1). Jimmy makes fun of his condition by describing his largest and most favorite tumor as a baseball which not only upsets his wife but masks his anxiety associated with his impending death. Coulombe confirms, “his humor suggests the extent to which Jimmy will go to try to protect himself from real pain: he does not want to face the horror of his cancer” (1). Upon further examination using the psychoanalytic lens, Jimmy’s use of humor develops unconsciously within the id to reduce tension and anxiety associated with death. Jimmy is trying to use humor to make light of the situation; thus, he is trying to make himself and his wife feel better. . In fact, Davies reiterates this idea by saying, “The enactment of humor (e.g., telling a joke) is often tied to the hope for a response that enhances or diminishes self-esteem” (Davies 9). The humor may not have worked for Jimmy’s wife, but he was using it to alleviate his conscious and unconscious fears. Students, and others, share this same tendency and can easily relate to Alexie’s