ipl-logo

Similarities Between The Lone Ranger And Tonto

462 Words2 Pages

Housekeeping in Heaven with the Lone Ranger and Tonto

Every family has its stories. Some we tell and some we keep to ourselves yet, both create the story of who we are. Although the selections of Marilynne Robinson’s Housekeeping and Sherman Alexie’s The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven are at first glance completely different, on a deeper level the similarities run deep. While the main characters in Housekeeping are poor white females and Alexie’s characters are poor Native males from very different worlds, they both experience great loss and b find the resilience to continue even when faced with discrimination and hardship. From the very start of “Every Little Hurricane” beginning with the fight between Victor’s uncles, the struggle between familial love and hate is prevalent. Victor himself states “they had to be in love. …show more content…

Native American culture is rich with storytelling and Sherman Alexie shares plenty of them. Victor believes the stories of his ancestors warriors and gruesome defeats while facing the reality of his depressing now. In Marilynne Robinson’s Housekeeping , Lucille references and “for whatever reasons, our whole family was standoffish. This was the fairest description of or best qualities, and the kindest description of our worst faults.” This unfortunate story moulds the future of Ruthie, Lucille and Sylvie by not allowing others into their story when help is needed and creating stigmas within the community leading to tragedy.
Sherman Alexie’s The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fist Fight in Heaven and Marilynne Robinson’s Housekeeping are undeniably two completely different stories and I’m sure the characters might even be offended by being compared to one another. However, when you look beyond the gender and color of skin to the deeper stories within, we are all not that

Show More
Related
235 Words | 1 Pages

Sherman Alexie utilizes “Superman and Me” to illustrate the power of literacy in encouraging Native Americans to surpass societal expectations. Alexie first introduces readers to his unique life on the reservation by describing how his family’s low economic status did not stop his father from accumulating an arsenal of books. In fact, he ascribes his devotion to literacy to his father’s love of books. Being constantly surrounded by books allowed Alexie to connect writing to the world around him. For example, he “realized that a paragraph was a fence that held words,” before continuing to comparing his family to a seven paragraph essay (Alexie 1401).

Read More
1188 Words | 5 Pages

This “unattended wound” illustrates that numerous people in the Native American community experience intricate and challenging lives, not just the characters within the novel. Further, Orange writes how Jacquie questions that the people around her often appear to be filled with confidence and a lack of self-doubt, but “Jacquie can’t remember a day going by when at some point she hadn’t

Read More
571 Words | 3 Pages

Writer Sherman Alexie has a knack of intertwining his own problematic biographical experience with his unique stories and no more than “The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven” demonstrates that. Alexie laced a story about an Indian man living in Spokane who reflects back on his struggles in life from a previous relationship, alcoholism, racism and even the isolation he’s dealt with by living off the reservation. Alexie has the ability to use symbolism throughout his tale by associating the title’s infamy of two different ethnic characters and interlinking it with the narrator experience between trying to fit into a more society apart from his own cultural background. However, within the words themselves, Alexie has created themes that surround despair around his character however he illuminates on resilience and alcoholism throughout this tale.

Read More
1478 Words | 6 Pages

The power of stories manifests itself in literature, film, and more generally life. Stories inspire, provide hope, and bring understanding. Leslie Marmon Silko’s novel Ceremony permeates the strength of stories. Ceremony follows the story of Tayo, a half white Native American plagued by the invasion of European culture, as well as his own past of war and loss. However, through the folk stories of his Laguna culture, as well as the advice he has been given to embrace his past, Tayo is able to see the world more clearly.

Read More
102 Words | 1 Pages

Sherman Alexie in the essay, “Superman and Me: The Joy of Reading and Writing,” explains that being underprivileged does not always lead to failure. ALexie supports his explanation by first, introducing his background as a young child on an Indian Reservation then, illustrating how he learned to read through a Superman Comic Book and finally, reflecting on his past to benefit future generations of native children. The author’s purpose is to change native kid’s futures through education in order to prove that native children can be successful. The author writes in a reflective tone for (well-educated) non-natives who expect failure from

Read More
1225 Words | 5 Pages

Years of being mistreated and living in poverty from generations to generations, engraves the harsh memories into the Indians from the early ages of childhood. Alexie provides the reader with brutal memories that Wright and Sherman, record company agents, have of the harming of the Indians: “Wright looked at Coyote Springs. He saw their Indian faces. He saw the faces of millions of Indians, beaten, scarred by smallpox and frostbite, split open by bayonets and bullets. He looked at his own white hands and saw the blood stains there” (244).

Read More
1121 Words | 5 Pages

In his book the Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, Sherman Alexie portrays a teenage boy, Arnold Spirit (junior) living in white man’s world, and he must struggle to overcome racism and stereotypes if he must achieve his dreams. In the book, Junior faces a myriad of misfortunes at his former school in ‘the rez’ (reservation), which occurs as he struggles to escape from racial and stereotypical expectations about Indians. For Junior he must weigh between accepting what is expected of him as an Indian or fight against those forces and proof his peers and teachers wrong. Therefore, from the time Junior is in school at reservation up to the time he decides to attend a neighboring school in Rearden, we see a teenager who is facing tough consequences for attempting to go against the racial stereotypes.

Read More
750 Words | 3 Pages

Once European men stepped foot onto what is now known as North America, the lives of the Native Americans were forever changed. The Indians suffered centuries of torment and ridicule from the settlers in America. Despite the reservations made for the Natives, there are still cultural issues occurring within America. In Sherman Alexie’s, The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven, the tragic lives of Native Americans in modern society are depicted in a collection of short stories taking place in the Spokane Reservation in Washington state. Throughout the collection, a prominent and reoccurring melancholic theme of racism against Native Americans and their struggle to cope with such behavior from their counterpart in this modern day and age is shown.

Read More
462 Words | 2 Pages

Sherman Alexie uses a combination of reality and fiction in order to show the reader what he thinks the lives of people on the Spokane Indian Reservation was like. In regards to what differentiates the fiction from the non-fiction of the stories you could look at present day Native American Reservations. Some reservations are still plagued with alcoholism, and poverty of the past. While the characters and stories are just vessels to deliver the message and show what Sherman Alexie portrayed the reservation live to be. The reaction and impact that this has on the reader is the same as the age-old use of story telling.

Read More
1020 Words | 5 Pages

Sherman Alexie’s Survival Equation and the Resilience of Native American Culture Sherman Alexie’s The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven portrays the hardships faced by Native Americans at the hands of the overpowering force of mainstream American culture. Alexie uses multiple perspectives in his book to convey the complexity of the situation on the reservation. However, his recurring themes such as survival, tradition, and underlying cultural ties connect the stories together as does the overarching message about the resilience of Native American people and their culture. With these consistent themes, the multiple perspectives found in his stories prove the validity of his cultural points due to their repetition. In his composite novel, Alexie reveals the resilience of Native American culture by breaking it down into a mathematical equation

Read More
1871 Words | 8 Pages

Native Americans in Canadian society are constantly fighting an uphill battle. After having their identity taken away in Residential Schools. The backlash of the Residential Schools haunts them today with Native American people struggling in today 's society. Native Americans make up five percent of the Canadian population, yet nearly a quarter of the murder victims. The haunting memories of Residential Schools haunt many Native Americans to this day.

Read More
1307 Words | 6 Pages

Shirley Jackson’s The Lottery and Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s The Yellow Wallpaper are classic short stories that have a powerful effect on their readers. Through the plight of their characters, Tessie and the Jane, Jackson and Gilman masterfully introduce their readers to the harsh realities of cruel and unjust societies. Although Tessie and Jane are from two separate stories, they bare many remarkable similarities, as both women are victims of their worlds’ formidable and stifling traditions. Both of the women’s different approaches to their similar plights, as well as the treatment they receive from their husbands, create unique and intriguing characters for both stories.

Read More
929 Words | 4 Pages

Being a writer of many different styles, Sherman Alexie started off as a poet before writing novels and short stories. His poetic manner continues in the story “Indian Education”. He has a wide array of dry statements mixed with metaphors and statements that are not meant to be taken literally. The trend for each years is that he starts off dry and literal and ends poetic and metaphorical. His description of his interactions with the “white girl” in seventh grade is a great example.

Read More
777 Words | 4 Pages

Sherman Alexie details this by focusing on the life of minorities after the 9/11 Terrorist attacks and the increase in racism and discrimination. Flight patterns places the importance on the conflicts which face a Native American man who is staying informed within modern times. William is a man who tries to balance family, identity, and career over everything else. A

Read More
1394 Words | 6 Pages

Though, this piece could not be published as it is deemed controversial. But for Cheryl, she knows it by heart, and it outlines the problem both the Metis and Indian people are going through. On the other hand, April despises her Metis culture and heritage. “‘… so anything to do with the Indians, I despised’” (40). April dreams of living similarly to a white person.

Read More

More about Similarities Between The Lone Ranger And Tonto

Related Topics

Open Document