The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven. 1) Throughout the opening story
, “Every Little Hurricane,” literal and figurative references to weather weave.
Essay discussion questions: The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven 1) Throughout the opening story, “Every Little Hurricane,” literal and figurative references to weather weave together: there is, in fact, a storm and in the lives of the characters there is volatility, too. Tension builds between the characters and erupts violently as the storm moves through. What is created through this interworking of the literal and figurative, through the close connecting of the natural and human worlds? How exactly does it work to create the effect Alexie wants to create in the story?
Why does Alexie choose this particular motif to frame his story, and what does this tell us about the lives of his Indians?
In the same story, as the two brothers fight and nearly murder each other, characters watch rather than act to avert a tragedy. Why don’t those other characters intervene? Is it merely a matter of passivity? What is meant by the line “This little kind of hurricane was genetic”? 2) The deep longing of young men to be warriors or to be reunited with a father figure emerges in several stories. Profound complexities attend the characters’ lives, because they are “saddled” with the weight of a long and tragic history of the American West, not to mention the difficulties of modern Indian life on the reservation (e.g. poverty, violence, unemployment, racism, alcoholism). The story “Imagining the Reservation” actually ends with a series of sentences that all begin hopefully, using the same refrain “Imagine…” each time. Why do you think this theme of longing and desire runs through so many of the stories? How does it change from story to story, how does it look similar or different, or function similarly or differently, in each story?
What is the particular “freight” of that desire for young Indian men to fight and love simultaneously: what does it signify or symbolize? What and do his Indians desire, why do they desire it? What emotions and histories drive their desire? What seems to consistently frustrate the fulfillment of this longing? By centering so many of his stories around themes of longing and desire, what does Alexie suggest about the force and the potential of hope, of imagination for contemporary Indians? 3) In “The Approximate Size of My Favorite Tumor” Alexie calls humor “an antiseptic that cleaned out the deepest personal wounds.” How important is humor throughout the book? What function(s) does it serve? What sort of humor prevails? Does is look and sound the same in every story? How exactly does it help to structure the narrative in each story? How does it make you feel as a (non-‐Indian) reader, and do you think it is Alexie’s intention to make you feel that way? Why? Is his humor funny, incisive, painful, or something else?
Throughout his stories Alexie evokes vividly the fragility of the tribal world, but often in a comic manner. This presents us with somewhat of a paradox: at his most absurd and humorous moments Alexie is also often having his characters describe something terribly somber, tragic or poignant. Although he might say it in a funny or self-‐ deprecating fashion, there is always the sense that the tribe may just vanish: “Sometimes it feels like our tribe is dying a piece of fry bread at a time.”
How does this sense of impending threat to the culture that Alexie portrays affect the lives of his characters? Why do they use humor to deal with the possibility of their very culture disappearing? How does this particular form of coping through humor help set the tone of his stories as a whole? What does it teach us about the “Indian condition” as Alexie sees it?
