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Summary Of The Lone Ranger And Tonto Fist Fight In Heaven

833 Words4 Pages

In Sherman Alexie’s collection of stories, The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fist Fight in Heaven, Alexie captivates his readers through the stories he tells revealing the lives of modern day Native Americans on the reservation through his characters. In general, many overlook the idea that Native Americans are oppressed and discriminated against. But in this book, Alexie describes the struggles of Native Americans’ emotional lives and the discrimination they face which make the readers more aware of the lives of Native Americans and in turn makes the stories more believable. Most American readers do not know about these problems and encounter them for the first time while reading this book. Through the use of figurative language, Alexie keeps his …show more content…

In Alexie’s story, “The Trial Of Thomas Builds-The-Fire,” Thomas is in the court and he tells stories as a way of “defending” himself. One of the stories he tells starts with “It all started on September 8, 1858. I was young pony, strong and quick in every moment. I remember this. Still, there was so much fear on that day when Colonel George Wright took me and 799 of my brothers captive”(96). Thomas tells a story about ponies being captured by a white general. Although Thomas refers himself to being that pony in his story, he implies that many Native Americans have been hopelessly captured and killed just like these ponies. Alexie shows that Native Americans have faced many hardships ever since colonists imperialized America. Thomas’s story is believable because he is telling realistic stories based on American history. Alexie’s incorporation of Victor’s fears makes the story, “Every Little Hurricanes” realistic. Victor has many fears as a child and one of his greatest fears is rain. “For years, Victor feared that he was going to drown while it was raining, so that even when he thrashed through the lake and opened his mouth to scream, he would taste even more water falling from the sky”(7). A developed fear probably came from Victor’s anxiety based on his troubled childhood. Victor is believable because his vulnerability causes readers to feel

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