The Lone Ranger

In Sherman Alexie’s collection titled The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven, many characters in this collection of stories intellectually benefit one another from telling their own stories. Native Americans can retain their history and cultural customs this way. For instance, Thomas Builds-the-Fire enjoys telling stories that are often surreal and have historical and natural contexts. His stories give his listeners observation of Native American history and how their experience had…

In The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven, Sherman Alexie shows how many young Native Americans struggle to find their personal identity in relation White America and their own disappearing culture. Young Native American’s are given a choice between a dominant culture that ridicules and stereotypes them, and their rapidly disappearing culture that they cannot relate to. The struggle between these two cultures leaves them confused and unsure with themselves. When young Native American’s…

The character Thomas Builds-the-Fire in the book The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven tells many different stories of the hardships each Indian on the reservation deals with, and of the how the people on the reservation can handle these hardships. The stories he uses in this book are mostly fictional, but they tell stories in a different way than how your mind actually puts it. He adds a little more magic in his stories to make them sound believable. It is through Thomas’ stories that…

This essay will argue that in both Quentin Tarantino’s Django Unchained hereby referred to as Django and Zane Gray’s The Lone Star Ranger, hereby referred to as Lone Star violence exists due to inept law enforcement. While there are differences in the medium, the violence within them is significant due to how central it is in these works. Moreover, Lone Star depicts violence as it should be for the cowboy or outlaw hero, while Django demonstrates violence as it is in reality, messy and full of…

The struggle of Native Americans in the United States was highlighted through an author who relates to them as well. Sherman Alexie is a Native American who wrote many books and one in particular was “The Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven” as it became a screenplay “Smoke Signals.” Both book and the movie showcase the lives of Native Americans living on the reservation. The reservation is more of isolated land and they are the only ethnic group of people living there. As they go through their…

Growing up in the late 80’s and early 90’s usually meant spending Saturday mornings watching cartoons, along with other popular shows while eating breakfast. One of these popular shows “The Lone Ranger”, gives us an example of the socialization process as it pertains to stereotyping. If one was to ask the question; what do you call a person who wears a cowboy hat, one will most likely respond with, “a Cowboy”. This is an example of an over generalization that people who wear cowboy hats are all…

The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven and Indian Killer are centered on the lives of Native Americans. Whether on or off the reservation, these characters face many challenges. However, no challenge is as great as their struggle for an identity in modern America. This is made apparent in each character’s actions, the stereotypes that are forced upon them, and the author’s use of symbolism. First, each character in The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven and Indian Killer deal with…

struggles. Alexie focuses on a few of the identity struggles he faced growing up and throughout his life in his texts, “Superman and Me”, “This is what it Means to Say Phoenix, Arizona’, “The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven” and “Cowboys Have Never Been My Heros”. He has overcome his struggles…

Two of them were “The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven” (1993) and “The Absolute True Diary of a Part-Time Indian” (2007) due to their crude language, sexism, violence, and much more. Alexie responded to the book ban by saying it “made the books more sacred”. A few of his…

could fly because he was thrown out the window. Victor’s dad was to drunk and set Thomas’ house on fire by a firecracker, this incident causes Thomas to live his grandmother and allows Victor’s dad to care for Thomas as well. In the story The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven the idea of society comes into play when the reader sees the cashier of 7-11 look at the narrator suspiciously. The narrator feels out of place when the cashier constantly tries to make conversation with him, but…