The novel “The Lone Ranger and the Tonto Fistfight in Heaven” by Sherman Alexie is turing out to be an excellent and entertaining read. The novel is split in 24 individual short stories that all come together through the main characters and their experience to emphasize the theme of the tragedy Native Americans faced when forced by the government to relocate to reservations. The events that take place in the novel manage to divert the audience from the mainstream myths and provide a glimpse into the reality of struggles Native Americans have.
From the very first chapter Sherman Alexie managed to grasp my complete attention by the way he described the party main characters had. The obscene language that the author used in depicting the fights and arguments highlights the effects of being forced to live in reservation such as alcoholism and severe depression. My Medical Sociology class discussed recently that Native Americans have been documented in 2004 to have the highest rates of liver disease and cirrhosis, accidents, and suicide out of the entire United States population. Another interesting statistic that we discussed is how Native Americans rate of mortality related to alcohol is 178 % higher than the general public. The statistics that my Medical Sociology class described such as suicide and liver disease rates stem strictly from the effects of alcoholism and depression among the Native American population which is a byproduct of the historical events that took place where our government forced the Native Americans to relocate.
The entire novel easily challenges the audience view of Native Americans based on their portrayal in the media. One particular chapter that challenged my perspective of the Native Americans was The Drug Called Tradition. The chapter focuses on the second largest party that the main character in this part of the novel, Thomas Builds-the-Fire, had. In this chapter the main characters Thomas, Victor, and Junior take a ride down to Benjamin Lake where they take a hallucinogenic drug that forces the character to imagine events from the past. This particular chapter challenged my view of what I imagined the typical Native American to act like. I mainly believed that typically Native Americans are extremely disciplined based on their historic struggles as well as how they are commonly depicted in the movies, however the actions described by Alexie highlight how they are no different than any ordinary American, indicating that the view our society has of them has been romanticized.
When thinking about the difference between the way Native Americans are depicted in the media versus reality I kept think over the reason why they are romanticized to be so extremely disciplined in the way the media portrays them? Is it a way they ancestors acted like before they were forced to live on reservation, or could it be a way our society is attempting to show favor in order to make up for all the wrong doing. Overall this is turing out to be a great read and every chapter provokes a great deal of thoughts. One last point I’d like to make is I stumbled on a trailer for a movie called Smoke Signals which was made in 1998 and is based on the novel. Now Im just curious how the director pieced together all the stories in the book to make the film flow without jumping around. Heres the link to the trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7XYEE-TBJlM
"In most people's minds, American Indians only exist in the nineteenth century." --Sherman Alexie
ReplyDeleteAlexie is definitely trying to show how we have romanticized Native Americans, and how we continue to do so. (Remember the "single tear" ad that Matt and Josh showed during their presentation?)
I think it's easy for us to romanticize, and even feel nostalgia for, "traditional" Native American life (by which we usually mean 18th- or 19th-century cultural practices that no longer exist except in ceremonies). But many times, when real, living, contemporary Native Americans try to make changes to policy or assert land rights, people quickly turn from romantics into realists and say "Nope, too late for that / that's not necessary."
One of Alexie's strengths as a writer is that he cuts right to the heart of these issues. He's constantly drawing us into the world of the past and its mythical figures, including Custer and Crazy Horse and Colonel George Wright. But then he always brings us sharply back into the present, as if to remind us that Native Americans do not still inhabit the nineteenth century.
Hey what’s up Pasha, excellent job on the blog post this week. I respect the fact that you were able to look up the statistics of the effects of alcohol by the native American culture . I am pretty sure that you noticed all of the negative factors that followed each character in each story as they were described as abusing alcohol. For instance in the story ”Because My Father Said He Was the Only Indian Who Saw Jimi Hendrix Play ‘The Start Spangled Banner’ at Woodstock”, the main character Victor explains how the use of alcohol had eventually ruined his fathers marriage with his wife. A quote from the story reads, “On a reservation, Indian men who abandon their children are treated worse than white fathers who do the same thing. It’s because white men have been doing that forever and Indians men have just learned how. That’s how assimilation can work.”(Alexie 34). This statement is a suggestion that the outside influences such as alcohol and rock and roll has penetrated Victors father so effectively in a negative way that he was willing to leave his family behind. If we combine the health related effects that you highlighted on in your post and the incident involving Victors father that I just mentioned then we can see why the use of alcohol has been banned on most Indian reservations in the U.S.
ReplyDeleteHey Pasha great posting. The facts that you found on the number of Native Americans having liver problems and being alcoholics are very interesting. The book this week was also very interesting I liked how the book was broken up into different stories but every story went with the one before and after it.
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