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Summary Of The Lone Ranger And Tonto Fistfight In Heaven

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In the book “The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven” by Sherman Alexie the main character is an indian named Victor. And each chapter is a story that follows either Victor's life or relates to Victor in some way. The story “Jesus Christ’s Half Brother is Alive and Well on the Spokane Indian Reservation” focuses on Victor and a boy named James, that is forced into Victor’s care. Victor ends up believing that James is related to Jesus Christ. But James is just a kid, he is not related Jesus Christ. The narrator, Victor, idolized James to be similar to Jesus Christ, which is someone he is not, as a coping mechanism to deal with his addiction to alcohol, his loneliness, and low-self esteem. For the start of the story about James, Victor struggled with his addiction to alcohol or was surrounded by alcohol. Even though Victor does end up being sober by the end of the story about James, throughout the book you can clearly his need for alcohol and when he is drinking his dependence for it. When Victor is drinking, he uses alcohol to get through simple moments in his life, “I went down to the reservation hospital to see how James and Frank and Rosemary were doing and I got …show more content…

His low-self esteem caused him to have no motivation to do anything with his life to make it better. For example, when he broke his leg, “I have to have an operation and all but since I don’t have the money or the strength or the memory and it’s not covered by Indian Health I just get up and walk home almost crying because my leg and life hurt so bad.” (pg 118-119). He never talks about if he is bothered by the fact that he can’t afford an operation, he just says his leg and life hurt. So he uses James to distract himself from his problems. And while he struggles with his problems, he creates James to be something he is not, to further distract himself from his problems that he doesn’t want to

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