I'd be interested in doing the option that publishes a website educating readers about Native American literature, its history, and the major critical issues in order to provide a context for reading Ceremony and The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fidtfight in Heaven. This is option C on our assignment sheet. As I have an art minor, I'd really enjoy the visual and possibly audio qualities this topic could produce. As I'm doing my final paper on nativism, I feel I can use the research I've gathered so far best in this topic. I have some basic web design/graphic skills taught to me by my Computer Science boyfriend (haha), so I can deal with most of the design elements of the project.
I propose a fairly interactive site which educates readers about various periods of Native American literature, complete with images and possibly audio if we can get ahold of it. I'd also like to devote at least part of the site to a timeline and another part to a fairly intensive discussion of critical issues; maybe one page could be devoted to nativism and examples in the text, maybe another to postmodernism, etc. We'd be designing roughly ten pages all linked together, with varying amounts of text. I'd prefer a group of about 3-4 for this project, mostly for the bulk of the writing. I could take on most of the design/audio/graphics elements (with some help from my programmer boyfriend...haha again), not to say I won't take on some of the writing, too. So if you want a group where you won't have to fiddle with the site and just write, you're more than welcome. Of course, if you want to design, I'd have no qualms, either. I'll write, no problem!
...I call dibs on the nativism page and the timeline, though! =)
Tuesday, May 19, 2009
Annotated Bibliography Draft for ALRATFIH
Jessica Webb
Professor Rouzie
ENG 254
Tuesday, May 19, 2009
Annotated Bibliography: Alexie’s “The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven”
Carroll, Kathleen L. “Ceremonial Tradition as Form and Theme in Sherman Alexie's "The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven": A Performance-Based Approach to Native American Literature.” The Journal of the Midwest Modern Language Association 38.1, Special Convention Issue: Performance (Spring 2005), 74-84. 18 May 2009. EBSCOhost..
Cox, James. "Muting White Noise: The Subversion of Popular Culture Narratives of Conquest in Sherman Alexie's Fiction." Studies in American Indian Literatures 9.4 (Winter 1997), 52-70. 18 May 2009. EBSCOhost..
DeNuccio, Jerome. "Slow Dancing with Skeletons: Sherman Alexie's The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven." Critique: Studies in Contemporary Fiction 44.1(2002), 86-96. EBSCOhost..
Dix, Andrew “Escape Stories: Narratives and Native Americans in Sherman Alexie's 'The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven'.” The Yearbook of English Studies, 31 (2001), 155-167. 18 May 2009. EBSCOhost..
Hafen, P. Jane. "Rock and Roll, Redskins, and Blues in Sherman Alexie's Work." Studies in American Indian Literatures: The Journal of the Association for the Study of American Indian Literatures 9.4 (Winter 1997), 71-78. 18 May 2009.EBSCOhost..
Professor Rouzie
ENG 254
Tuesday, May 19, 2009
Annotated Bibliography: Alexie’s “The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven”
Carroll, Kathleen L. “Ceremonial Tradition as Form and Theme in Sherman Alexie's "The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven": A Performance-Based Approach to Native American Literature.” The Journal of the Midwest Modern Language Association 38.1, Special Convention Issue: Performance (Spring 2005), 74-84. 18 May 2009. EBSCOhost.
Cox, James. "Muting White Noise: The Subversion of Popular Culture Narratives of Conquest in Sherman Alexie's Fiction." Studies in American Indian Literatures 9.4 (Winter 1997), 52-70. 18 May 2009. EBSCOhost.
DeNuccio, Jerome. "Slow Dancing with Skeletons: Sherman Alexie's The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven." Critique: Studies in Contemporary Fiction 44.1(2002), 86-96. EBSCOhost.
Dix, Andrew “Escape Stories: Narratives and Native Americans in Sherman Alexie's 'The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven'.” The Yearbook of English Studies, 31 (2001), 155-167. 18 May 2009. EBSCOhost.
Hafen, P. Jane. "Rock and Roll, Redskins, and Blues in Sherman Alexie's Work." Studies in American Indian Literatures: The Journal of the Association for the Study of American Indian Literatures 9.4 (Winter 1997), 71-78. 18 May 2009.EBSCOhost.
Wednesday, May 13, 2009
Summary of "The Approximate Size of His Favorite Humor"
In Coulombe's "The Approximate Size of His Favorite Humor", he attempts to show Alexie's purpose of using humor in his writing. He also examines the critical views to Alexie's use of humor. Coulombe presents Alexie's humor as "central to a constructive social and moral purpose" (94) throughout his works, as well as the similarities it shows to classic Indian 'Trickster' humor. Some critics feel that Alexie's humor puts too much of the blame on the Indians thesmelves. Most critics, however, feel that Alexie's humor disrespects the troubles Indians now face. Alexie's humor, Coulombe asserts, does not do any of those things. It simply serves the purpose Alexie intends his humor to: it makes the reader feel unsettled and challenges their conventional thought processes. This allows Alexie's characters to connect to the readers. In this unsettled space, the readers can choose for themselves what unifies and separates Indians from them. The humor creates this space for the reader to feel unsettled and stimulates independent thought. This offers an increased chance for inter-cultural understanding and seeing things from the Indian perspective. To quote Coulombe: "Alexie's stories force [the readers] to rethink own own level of culpability in a culture that fosters racism, hate and despair" (103). Alexie, Coulombe goes on to say, uses his humor to blame white America (mostly) and Indians themselves for the troubles modern-day Indians now face. In this way, Alexie uses his humor to separate Indians form whites. However, Alexie also uses humor to show the universality between our two cultures. Alexie's humor, Coulombe argues, "allows for bonds between Indians and whites" (108).
Works Cited:
Coulombe, Joseph. “The Approximate Size of His Favorite Humor: Sherman Alexie’s Comic Connections and Disconnections in The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven” American Indian Quarterly 26 (winter 2002) : p. 94-115. Project Muse. Ohio University Lib. Athens, OH.
Works Cited:
Coulombe, Joseph. “The Approximate Size of His Favorite Humor: Sherman Alexie’s Comic Connections and Disconnections in The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven” American Indian Quarterly 26 (winter 2002) : p. 94-115. Project Muse. Ohio University Lib. Athens, OH.
Summary/Application Assignment #1 (Revised)
Summary:
Gloria Bird’s essay discusses the decolonization of her language and culture. Bird starts off by showing the influences of colonization on native peoples. The possession of language is then spoken about from a personal perspective. Repression of native languages, she feels, is the essence of colonization. She argues that through literature, culture, and language people can literally unlearn things and become decolonized. Ceremony breaks down the Native Americans’ inferiority complex to further. Ceremony is also what she calls a piece of “critical fiction”. Ceremony is written, she argues, to show that all peoples can and are slowly becoming decolonized.
Bird also argues for a sense of racial and identity confusion. She states that mixed-blood Indians become aimless when their identities come into question. These Indians must learn to reconcile with both identities. Tayo must come to terms with his own identity. Tayo’s ceremony is, in part, a struggle to re-gain his identity. Lack of identity brings pain and can make people disconnect from the world. This searching for identity and self-awareness is a common theme and Tayo is the only character who has a positive outcome of this search. Everyone else ends up ignoring this search for identity completely and/or becoming a drunk. These characters end up having no options and become trapped through their lack of self-awareness. Tayo’s urban experience almost loses him everything, including his progress on his journey to re-gain his identity.
Witchery is a common theme in this article. Witchery is, in short summary, a Euro-American cultural colonization and style. Witchery promotes disrespect of the earth and cultural alienation between peoples. This is because this type of culture does not take care of how it treats the earth or even consider how they are transforming it. Though this culture is the root of the problem, whites are not to blame. They are also victims in the witchery. Change is also another theme in Silko’s Ceremony. The ceremonies change as the world changes and Betonie understands this. He changes the way he lives to better suit the ever-shifting world. Josiah reacts to change by diversifying his cattle herd. A worldview must shift for positive change to typically occur. Change must be managed or it can destroy everything, Bird asserts.
Bird shows us that Tayo is striving towards finding what is holding him back from returning to his culture. This thing also makes him feel guilty for not being white! Guilt becomes irrevocably linked to colonization. Bird also makes a case for how Silko addresses time in Ceremony. Silko’s use, Bird claims, of nonlinear time and space helps to further decolonize the Indians, banishing the feeling of “otherness” in the culture. It also helps her to “collapse time” to show how all things are connected; usually via the landscape. Bird ends her article on the note that perhaps Indian culture will not always be seen as “other”, rather as a sibling-type of culture to the colonized, American mainstream. We must be willing to see the world differently.
Application:
Bird’s essay was unique for me in its approach to how Ceremony should be looked at. It was critical, of course, but was also always finding new ways to see the novel differently. Bird gives the reader a great feel for how Ceremony tries to decolonize by questioning the fabric of the colonization model. The process of decolonization threatens not just Native American views and teachings of language and culture, but also the fact that the whites have been using the Indians somewhat as scapegoats. This process may also one day make Native American morals mesh with Americanized, colonial moralities. Bird invites Native Americans to look at their culture in this new way as well in an attempt to regain what they have lost.
Examining the characters who do not focus on fit into this colonized society (Auntie and Emo are decent examples here) is a good way to examine the new culture. As for attempting to regain what they have lost, some characters take an individual approach (Bentonie is a good example here) and try to make their own way. I feel neither Silko nor Bird discusses this situation well. When Tayo is about to be labeled a “thief” (Bird 6), he begins to struggle out of this colonialization on his own, breaking out of the box the white man has built for the Indian. He begins to look at his culture in a new way, not as simply being “Indian”. He realizes that the white man is just like the Indian and that not much separates them. He can now focus on healing. As he frees the cattle, he frees himself from the white-imposed box and sees that all mean are equal in this way; no more or less. All people pretty much can be labeled as “thieves”.
Racism is the hurdle in the way of achieving decolonization and dispelling the feeling and stigma of being “other”. Racism is a product of colonization, not on the Native American’s side, but on the colonials’ side. Perhaps it is born of fear, because the Indians are so much more different than them or perhaps it is born because the status quo for the whites is much better now than it’s ever been and they don’t want to shake up the status quo, per se. This explains why when the Tayo, Rocky, and the others put a uniform on and fight in the war, they are no longer the subject of any racism; their hair is cut and they are not immediately recognized as being a Native American, they are simply a soldier first. Racism no longer plays a role into what people perceive about these men.
Works Cited:
Bird, Gloria. "Towards a Decolonization of the Mind and Text 1: Leslie Marmon Silko's "Ceremony"" Wicazo Sa Review, Vol 9, No. 2 Autumn 1993. University of Minnesota Press. 04 Jan. 2009 .
Silko, Leslie Marmon. Ceremony (Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition). New York: Penguin Books, 2006.
Gloria Bird’s essay discusses the decolonization of her language and culture. Bird starts off by showing the influences of colonization on native peoples. The possession of language is then spoken about from a personal perspective. Repression of native languages, she feels, is the essence of colonization. She argues that through literature, culture, and language people can literally unlearn things and become decolonized. Ceremony breaks down the Native Americans’ inferiority complex to further. Ceremony is also what she calls a piece of “critical fiction”. Ceremony is written, she argues, to show that all peoples can and are slowly becoming decolonized.
Bird also argues for a sense of racial and identity confusion. She states that mixed-blood Indians become aimless when their identities come into question. These Indians must learn to reconcile with both identities. Tayo must come to terms with his own identity. Tayo’s ceremony is, in part, a struggle to re-gain his identity. Lack of identity brings pain and can make people disconnect from the world. This searching for identity and self-awareness is a common theme and Tayo is the only character who has a positive outcome of this search. Everyone else ends up ignoring this search for identity completely and/or becoming a drunk. These characters end up having no options and become trapped through their lack of self-awareness. Tayo’s urban experience almost loses him everything, including his progress on his journey to re-gain his identity.
Witchery is a common theme in this article. Witchery is, in short summary, a Euro-American cultural colonization and style. Witchery promotes disrespect of the earth and cultural alienation between peoples. This is because this type of culture does not take care of how it treats the earth or even consider how they are transforming it. Though this culture is the root of the problem, whites are not to blame. They are also victims in the witchery. Change is also another theme in Silko’s Ceremony. The ceremonies change as the world changes and Betonie understands this. He changes the way he lives to better suit the ever-shifting world. Josiah reacts to change by diversifying his cattle herd. A worldview must shift for positive change to typically occur. Change must be managed or it can destroy everything, Bird asserts.
Bird shows us that Tayo is striving towards finding what is holding him back from returning to his culture. This thing also makes him feel guilty for not being white! Guilt becomes irrevocably linked to colonization. Bird also makes a case for how Silko addresses time in Ceremony. Silko’s use, Bird claims, of nonlinear time and space helps to further decolonize the Indians, banishing the feeling of “otherness” in the culture. It also helps her to “collapse time” to show how all things are connected; usually via the landscape. Bird ends her article on the note that perhaps Indian culture will not always be seen as “other”, rather as a sibling-type of culture to the colonized, American mainstream. We must be willing to see the world differently.
Application:
Bird’s essay was unique for me in its approach to how Ceremony should be looked at. It was critical, of course, but was also always finding new ways to see the novel differently. Bird gives the reader a great feel for how Ceremony tries to decolonize by questioning the fabric of the colonization model. The process of decolonization threatens not just Native American views and teachings of language and culture, but also the fact that the whites have been using the Indians somewhat as scapegoats. This process may also one day make Native American morals mesh with Americanized, colonial moralities. Bird invites Native Americans to look at their culture in this new way as well in an attempt to regain what they have lost.
Examining the characters who do not focus on fit into this colonized society (Auntie and Emo are decent examples here) is a good way to examine the new culture. As for attempting to regain what they have lost, some characters take an individual approach (Bentonie is a good example here) and try to make their own way. I feel neither Silko nor Bird discusses this situation well. When Tayo is about to be labeled a “thief” (Bird 6), he begins to struggle out of this colonialization on his own, breaking out of the box the white man has built for the Indian. He begins to look at his culture in a new way, not as simply being “Indian”. He realizes that the white man is just like the Indian and that not much separates them. He can now focus on healing. As he frees the cattle, he frees himself from the white-imposed box and sees that all mean are equal in this way; no more or less. All people pretty much can be labeled as “thieves”.
Racism is the hurdle in the way of achieving decolonization and dispelling the feeling and stigma of being “other”. Racism is a product of colonization, not on the Native American’s side, but on the colonials’ side. Perhaps it is born of fear, because the Indians are so much more different than them or perhaps it is born because the status quo for the whites is much better now than it’s ever been and they don’t want to shake up the status quo, per se. This explains why when the Tayo, Rocky, and the others put a uniform on and fight in the war, they are no longer the subject of any racism; their hair is cut and they are not immediately recognized as being a Native American, they are simply a soldier first. Racism no longer plays a role into what people perceive about these men.
Works Cited:
Bird, Gloria. "Towards a Decolonization of the Mind and Text 1: Leslie Marmon Silko's "Ceremony"" Wicazo Sa Review, Vol 9, No. 2 Autumn 1993. University of Minnesota Press. 04 Jan. 2009 .
Silko, Leslie Marmon. Ceremony (Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition). New York: Penguin Books, 2006.
Summary/Application Assignment #2
Summary:
In Coulombe's "The Approximate Size of His Favorite Humor", he attempts to show Alexie's purpose of using humor in his writing. He also examines the critical views to Alexie's use of humor. Coulombe presents Alexie's humor as "central to a constructive social and moral purpose" (Coulombe 94) throughout his works, as well as the similarities it shows to classic Indian 'Trickster' humor. Some critics feel that Alexie's humor puts too much of the blame on the Indians thesmelves. Most critics, however, feel that Alexie's humor disrespects the troubles Indians now face. Alexie's humor, Coulombe asserts, does not do any of those things. It simply serves the purpose Alexie intends his humor to: it makes the reader feel unsettled and challenges their conventional thought processes. This allows Alexie's characters to connect to the readers. In this unsettled space, the readers can choose for themselves what unifies and separates Indians from them. The humor creates this space for the reader to feel unsettled and stimulates independent thought. This offers an increased chance for inter-cultural understanding and seeing things from the Indian perspective. To quote Coulombe: "Alexie's stories force [the readers] to rethink own own level of culpability in a culture that fosters racism, hate and despair" (Coulombe 103). Alexie, Coulombe goes on to say, uses his humor to blame white America (mostly) and Indians themselves for the troubles modern-day Indians now face. In this way, Alexie uses his humor to separate Indians form whites. However, Alexie also uses humor to show the universality between our two cultures. Alexie's humor, Coulombe argues, "allows for bonds between Indians and whites" (Coulombe 108).
Application:
Coulombe uses the common thread of humor to speak of Alexie’s stories in The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven. He discusses why Alexie uses his humor the way he does and finds that, “Laughter might discomfort and confuse us, but it also prompts thinking, growth, and change” (Coulombe 112). I will focus on how humor and laughter can promote change and growth within Alexie’s works.
In Alexie’s story “This is What it Means to Say Phoenix, Arizona”, humor and laugher creates a bond with the gymnast on the plane to Phoenix. They’re looked at as peers enduring a boring flight first, not as Indians. Victor says after the flight: “Yeah but everybody talks to everybody on airplanes” (Alexie 67). He follows this with: “It’s too bad we can’t always be that way” (Alexie 67). Why does Victor discount this positive connection with this woman? This is probably because he is so used to negative interactions with white people. He cannot believe that a white woman, a pretty gymnast, would not be prejudiced against them for being Indian. This humor on the flight will lead to a change in the way the gymnast feels about Indians in a generally positive way, as well as change the way Victor looks at his interactions with whites. Perhaps he will not be so prejudiced and always think every white person automatically dislikes him because he’s an Indian. The woman on the flight saw it as an after-thought: “Hey…You two are Indian, right?” (Alexie 66). Perhaps his relationship with whites in general will grow and improve because of her positive response to their conversation: “Cathy the gymnast smiled and waved good-bye” (Alexie 67), “The three of them talked for the duration of the flight” (Alexie 67), and “They all laughed” (Alexie 66). This, according to Coulombe, is an example of “Alexie’s sophisticated use of humor unsettles conventional ways of thinking and compels re-evaluation and growth” (Coulombe 95).
In “Because My Father Always Said He Was the Only Indian Who Saw Jimi Hendrix Play ‘The Star-Spangled Banner’ At Woodstock”, racism and racial discrimination takes a large role. The Woodstock photographer profits off of this racism: “The photographer won a Pulitzer Prize” (Alexie 25). Very little about racism can be seen as funny, but Alexie treats them as such, especially when it comes to the picture the Times ran on Victor’s father: “The editors capitalized on my father’s Native American identity with other headlines like One Warrior Against War and Peaceful Gathering Turns Into Native Uprising” (Alexie 25). This humor leads to Victor’s father being used as an example in court and being jailed. This makes the reader uncomfortable, however, the change and growth promoted by this is the leaving of his wife and son, as well as the breaking up of his marriage. Victor’s father, because of this event, grows to become assimilated into white America: “Don’t know shit about music either. Especially you Indian kids. You all have been spoiled by those drums. Been hearing them beat so long, you think that’s all you need. Hell, son, even an Indian needs a piano or a guitar or saxophone now and again“(Alexie 30). This is unsettling and a good example of what Coulombe asserts: “Alexie rarely offers an easy moral-to-the-story; the questions he raises—and the world he depicts—have few simple answers” (Coulombe 97). No one ever said that all humor in Alexie’s works promote growth and change for the better. Some of it has to be negative.
“The Approximate Size of My Favorite Tumor” is another short story by Alexie that uses humor as an agent of change. According to Coulombe, “In this story more than any other, [Alexie] demonstrates the power of humor both to bring people together and tear people apart” (Coulombe 98). The change seen in this story of Alexie’s is both negative and positive. Coulombe states that: “Both the humor and the tumor are potentially dangerous aspects of Jimmy’s life” (Coulombe 98). Certainly, here humor is seen as an agent of change and growth. The question is whether it is positive or negative.
Norma is driven away by the jokes Jimmy makes” “Norma heard what I had to say, stood up, and left me” (Alexie 159). However, this humor allows him to cope with the dramatic and painful changes occurring in his life. The use of humor that Jimmy uses to cope is best seen in the conversation with his doctor:
“So…What’s my latest prognosis?”
“Well…It comes down to this. You’re dying.”
“Not again.”
“Yup, Jimmy, you’re still dying.” (Alexie 162)
This humor, Coulombe asserts, “is a coping mechanism that borders on denial” (Coulombe 98), but a coping mechanism nonetheless. It is with this humor that Jimmy will learn to die. It is because of this humor that Norma eventually returns to him.
Humor allows a reader to look at each of Alexie’s stories in this collection as independent of one another and allows the reader to relate. This relation alone can promote positive change and growth by white culture simply becoming more accepting of Indian culture. Every culture on Earth laughs. That creates a common bond between us all. This laughter is an incredible force to facilitate the beginnings of understanding. When you laugh with someone, you see them as a person and a peer, not as a person of their particular race first. This humor and laughter can break down walls of hate, racism, and prejudice between people. We just have to let it. In Alexie’s best words: “Do you believe laughter can save us?” (Alexie 152). Yes, I believe it can.
Works Cited:
Alexie, Sherman. The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven. New York: Grove Press, 2005.
Coulombe, Joseph. “The Approximate Size of His Favorite Humor: Sherman Alexie’s Comic Connections and Disconnections in The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven” American Indian Quarterly 26 (winter 2002) : p. 94-115. Project Muse. Ohio University Lib. Athens, OH.
In Coulombe's "The Approximate Size of His Favorite Humor", he attempts to show Alexie's purpose of using humor in his writing. He also examines the critical views to Alexie's use of humor. Coulombe presents Alexie's humor as "central to a constructive social and moral purpose" (Coulombe 94) throughout his works, as well as the similarities it shows to classic Indian 'Trickster' humor. Some critics feel that Alexie's humor puts too much of the blame on the Indians thesmelves. Most critics, however, feel that Alexie's humor disrespects the troubles Indians now face. Alexie's humor, Coulombe asserts, does not do any of those things. It simply serves the purpose Alexie intends his humor to: it makes the reader feel unsettled and challenges their conventional thought processes. This allows Alexie's characters to connect to the readers. In this unsettled space, the readers can choose for themselves what unifies and separates Indians from them. The humor creates this space for the reader to feel unsettled and stimulates independent thought. This offers an increased chance for inter-cultural understanding and seeing things from the Indian perspective. To quote Coulombe: "Alexie's stories force [the readers] to rethink own own level of culpability in a culture that fosters racism, hate and despair" (Coulombe 103). Alexie, Coulombe goes on to say, uses his humor to blame white America (mostly) and Indians themselves for the troubles modern-day Indians now face. In this way, Alexie uses his humor to separate Indians form whites. However, Alexie also uses humor to show the universality between our two cultures. Alexie's humor, Coulombe argues, "allows for bonds between Indians and whites" (Coulombe 108).
Application:
Coulombe uses the common thread of humor to speak of Alexie’s stories in The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven. He discusses why Alexie uses his humor the way he does and finds that, “Laughter might discomfort and confuse us, but it also prompts thinking, growth, and change” (Coulombe 112). I will focus on how humor and laughter can promote change and growth within Alexie’s works.
In Alexie’s story “This is What it Means to Say Phoenix, Arizona”, humor and laugher creates a bond with the gymnast on the plane to Phoenix. They’re looked at as peers enduring a boring flight first, not as Indians. Victor says after the flight: “Yeah but everybody talks to everybody on airplanes” (Alexie 67). He follows this with: “It’s too bad we can’t always be that way” (Alexie 67). Why does Victor discount this positive connection with this woman? This is probably because he is so used to negative interactions with white people. He cannot believe that a white woman, a pretty gymnast, would not be prejudiced against them for being Indian. This humor on the flight will lead to a change in the way the gymnast feels about Indians in a generally positive way, as well as change the way Victor looks at his interactions with whites. Perhaps he will not be so prejudiced and always think every white person automatically dislikes him because he’s an Indian. The woman on the flight saw it as an after-thought: “Hey…You two are Indian, right?” (Alexie 66). Perhaps his relationship with whites in general will grow and improve because of her positive response to their conversation: “Cathy the gymnast smiled and waved good-bye” (Alexie 67), “The three of them talked for the duration of the flight” (Alexie 67), and “They all laughed” (Alexie 66). This, according to Coulombe, is an example of “Alexie’s sophisticated use of humor unsettles conventional ways of thinking and compels re-evaluation and growth” (Coulombe 95).
In “Because My Father Always Said He Was the Only Indian Who Saw Jimi Hendrix Play ‘The Star-Spangled Banner’ At Woodstock”, racism and racial discrimination takes a large role. The Woodstock photographer profits off of this racism: “The photographer won a Pulitzer Prize” (Alexie 25). Very little about racism can be seen as funny, but Alexie treats them as such, especially when it comes to the picture the Times ran on Victor’s father: “The editors capitalized on my father’s Native American identity with other headlines like One Warrior Against War and Peaceful Gathering Turns Into Native Uprising” (Alexie 25). This humor leads to Victor’s father being used as an example in court and being jailed. This makes the reader uncomfortable, however, the change and growth promoted by this is the leaving of his wife and son, as well as the breaking up of his marriage. Victor’s father, because of this event, grows to become assimilated into white America: “Don’t know shit about music either. Especially you Indian kids. You all have been spoiled by those drums. Been hearing them beat so long, you think that’s all you need. Hell, son, even an Indian needs a piano or a guitar or saxophone now and again“(Alexie 30). This is unsettling and a good example of what Coulombe asserts: “Alexie rarely offers an easy moral-to-the-story; the questions he raises—and the world he depicts—have few simple answers” (Coulombe 97). No one ever said that all humor in Alexie’s works promote growth and change for the better. Some of it has to be negative.
“The Approximate Size of My Favorite Tumor” is another short story by Alexie that uses humor as an agent of change. According to Coulombe, “In this story more than any other, [Alexie] demonstrates the power of humor both to bring people together and tear people apart” (Coulombe 98). The change seen in this story of Alexie’s is both negative and positive. Coulombe states that: “Both the humor and the tumor are potentially dangerous aspects of Jimmy’s life” (Coulombe 98). Certainly, here humor is seen as an agent of change and growth. The question is whether it is positive or negative.
Norma is driven away by the jokes Jimmy makes” “Norma heard what I had to say, stood up, and left me” (Alexie 159). However, this humor allows him to cope with the dramatic and painful changes occurring in his life. The use of humor that Jimmy uses to cope is best seen in the conversation with his doctor:
“So…What’s my latest prognosis?”
“Well…It comes down to this. You’re dying.”
“Not again.”
“Yup, Jimmy, you’re still dying.” (Alexie 162)
This humor, Coulombe asserts, “is a coping mechanism that borders on denial” (Coulombe 98), but a coping mechanism nonetheless. It is with this humor that Jimmy will learn to die. It is because of this humor that Norma eventually returns to him.
Humor allows a reader to look at each of Alexie’s stories in this collection as independent of one another and allows the reader to relate. This relation alone can promote positive change and growth by white culture simply becoming more accepting of Indian culture. Every culture on Earth laughs. That creates a common bond between us all. This laughter is an incredible force to facilitate the beginnings of understanding. When you laugh with someone, you see them as a person and a peer, not as a person of their particular race first. This humor and laughter can break down walls of hate, racism, and prejudice between people. We just have to let it. In Alexie’s best words: “Do you believe laughter can save us?” (Alexie 152). Yes, I believe it can.
Works Cited:
Alexie, Sherman. The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven. New York: Grove Press, 2005.
Coulombe, Joseph. “The Approximate Size of His Favorite Humor: Sherman Alexie’s Comic Connections and Disconnections in The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven” American Indian Quarterly 26 (winter 2002) : p. 94-115. Project Muse. Ohio University Lib. Athens, OH.
Monday, May 11, 2009
Ceremony Response, Pages 1-51
Explain why Tayo blames himself for the six year drought.
He feels guilt because he prayed for the rain to end while he was in the jungle at war. The rain began to drive him mad. Because of this praying, Tayo feels guilty he refused one of Mother Earth's greatest gifts, regardless of the situation. He feels like because he prayed for it to stop, now the earth is angry at him and is sending his people a six-year drought out of some sense of spite or ability to "get even". He feels he brought this drought back with him from the war. Tayo is fraught with self-guilt. He puts all the burden of the drought's guilt on himself, which does not help his spiritual and physical healing.
Describe, as best as you can, Auntie’s attitudes about Tayo, mixed blood, and religion.
Auntie loves Tayo because he is family, but does not truly accept him. However, she cannot agree with her sister's mixing of Indian and white blood in Tayo. She is ashamed of this. This is a more traditionalist standpoint, but Auntie still adheres to it. Now, Auntie loves Tayo for more than being family. She is all she has left after the death of her son. She is a little bitter, though, that he returned and not Rocky, a "good" full-blood. Auntie, however, worries about jeopardizing the purity of the tribe's blood, but herself is a Christian. Does she even believe in the medicine man's powers when they bring him up? I doubt it. Auntie is a traditionalist hypocrite, in short.
He feels guilt because he prayed for the rain to end while he was in the jungle at war. The rain began to drive him mad. Because of this praying, Tayo feels guilty he refused one of Mother Earth's greatest gifts, regardless of the situation. He feels like because he prayed for it to stop, now the earth is angry at him and is sending his people a six-year drought out of some sense of spite or ability to "get even". He feels he brought this drought back with him from the war. Tayo is fraught with self-guilt. He puts all the burden of the drought's guilt on himself, which does not help his spiritual and physical healing.
Describe, as best as you can, Auntie’s attitudes about Tayo, mixed blood, and religion.
Auntie loves Tayo because he is family, but does not truly accept him. However, she cannot agree with her sister's mixing of Indian and white blood in Tayo. She is ashamed of this. This is a more traditionalist standpoint, but Auntie still adheres to it. Now, Auntie loves Tayo for more than being family. She is all she has left after the death of her son. She is a little bitter, though, that he returned and not Rocky, a "good" full-blood. Auntie, however, worries about jeopardizing the purity of the tribe's blood, but herself is a Christian. Does she even believe in the medicine man's powers when they bring him up? I doubt it. Auntie is a traditionalist hypocrite, in short.
Monday, May 4, 2009
First "TLRATFIH" Response (the first 75 pages)
Frank Ross asked Alexie about the political nature of his writing, quoting him as saying he does not like to beat readers over the head with it. Alexie replied: “I like to make them laugh first, then beat them over the head . . . when they are defenseless.” Describe some examples from the stories that demonstrate this tactic. Choose one example to focus on and explain how the humor and political point work together as in the above quote.
The realities Victor faces in his daily life exude humor through the bleak picture of reality that Alexie paints. The humor masks the harshness of life on a modern Indian reservation. In the first story in this collection, "Every Little Hurricane", Alexis metaphorical relation between violence and love that his Uncles display is comical yet sad, in that it is Indians fighting Indians- a thing that has been happening since they were colonized. This type of internal conflict is slowly killing them. As Alexie notes, "One Indian killing another did not create a special kind of storm" (3). This reveals plainly to the reader the bleak truths of being an Indian in the modern world. By showing us ourselves in this manner through his work, Alexie makes us laugh at the world in which we live in, our society, our culture, and ultimately, ourselves. A special kind of hate born of love is not an emotion so hard to relate to. It's not just an "Indidan" emotion, it's something that links us with these people and their downfall. By showing us a family fight, Alexie makes us laugh. Until the bleakness of the situation is realized and "everybody [is] assessing the damage" (4): there is still an unrealized pain that spreads like a virus among the party-goers now, a melancholy that cannot be stopped: "This pain grew, expanded...The forecast was not good. Indians continued to drink harder and harder, as if anticipating" (8). The weather analogy lightens up the tone a bit but the bleak truth is still there. Only one long-term strategy for survival remains for these people and even it is failing: they must cling together or they will fall, as evidenced by Victor's frantic searching for his parents in the end of the story. The downfall of the Indian, although masked with humor, is viewed here as nearly inevitable.
On whiteness, Indian identity and colonialism, Alexie says, “What is colonialism but the breeding out of existence of the colonized? The most dangerous thing for Indians, then, now and forever is that we love our colonizers. And we do.” He goes on to say, and I paraphrase, that Indian identity now is mostly a matter of cultural difference; that culture is received knowledge, because the authentic practitioners are gone. The culture is all adopted culture, not innate. Colonization is complete. Think about how what he is discussing plays out in his stories. Choose one (a different one than for the first question) and discuss how a story represents the characters' relationship to the tribe's past and to the colonizing culture.
In the short story "Because My Father Always Said He Was The Only Indian Who Saw Jimi Hendrix Play 'The Star-Spangled Banner' At Woodstock," Victor's father feels no connection to the tribe's past. He idolizes Hendrix instead of an Indian figure, regardless if Hendrix is something from mainstream America that has no interests in his rights as a Native American. Because of this, he feels little connection with the tribe in the first place. His love of Hank Williams also shows how much of mainstream American culture he values versus his ethnic Indian culture. When asked about his choice in music, he replies: "You kids...Don't know shit about music either. Especially you Indian kids. You all have been spoiled by those drums. Been hearing them beat so long, you think that's all you need. Hell, son, even an Indian needs a piano or guitar or saxophone now and again" (30). Every other Indian who fought this colonization process before him would disagree. Victor's father has been enveloped by colonization and has been taken in by mainstream America. Victor's father only seems to spread the feeling of complete colonization not just to the people he meets, but also to his wife and son. Victor's father represents colonization here as he left the tribe to drink and ultimately die.
Alexie, Sherman. The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight In Heaven. New York, New York: 2005.
The realities Victor faces in his daily life exude humor through the bleak picture of reality that Alexie paints. The humor masks the harshness of life on a modern Indian reservation. In the first story in this collection, "Every Little Hurricane", Alexis metaphorical relation between violence and love that his Uncles display is comical yet sad, in that it is Indians fighting Indians- a thing that has been happening since they were colonized. This type of internal conflict is slowly killing them. As Alexie notes, "One Indian killing another did not create a special kind of storm" (3). This reveals plainly to the reader the bleak truths of being an Indian in the modern world. By showing us ourselves in this manner through his work, Alexie makes us laugh at the world in which we live in, our society, our culture, and ultimately, ourselves. A special kind of hate born of love is not an emotion so hard to relate to. It's not just an "Indidan" emotion, it's something that links us with these people and their downfall. By showing us a family fight, Alexie makes us laugh. Until the bleakness of the situation is realized and "everybody [is] assessing the damage" (4): there is still an unrealized pain that spreads like a virus among the party-goers now, a melancholy that cannot be stopped: "This pain grew, expanded...The forecast was not good. Indians continued to drink harder and harder, as if anticipating" (8). The weather analogy lightens up the tone a bit but the bleak truth is still there. Only one long-term strategy for survival remains for these people and even it is failing: they must cling together or they will fall, as evidenced by Victor's frantic searching for his parents in the end of the story. The downfall of the Indian, although masked with humor, is viewed here as nearly inevitable.
On whiteness, Indian identity and colonialism, Alexie says, “What is colonialism but the breeding out of existence of the colonized? The most dangerous thing for Indians, then, now and forever is that we love our colonizers. And we do.” He goes on to say, and I paraphrase, that Indian identity now is mostly a matter of cultural difference; that culture is received knowledge, because the authentic practitioners are gone. The culture is all adopted culture, not innate. Colonization is complete. Think about how what he is discussing plays out in his stories. Choose one (a different one than for the first question) and discuss how a story represents the characters' relationship to the tribe's past and to the colonizing culture.
In the short story "Because My Father Always Said He Was The Only Indian Who Saw Jimi Hendrix Play 'The Star-Spangled Banner' At Woodstock," Victor's father feels no connection to the tribe's past. He idolizes Hendrix instead of an Indian figure, regardless if Hendrix is something from mainstream America that has no interests in his rights as a Native American. Because of this, he feels little connection with the tribe in the first place. His love of Hank Williams also shows how much of mainstream American culture he values versus his ethnic Indian culture. When asked about his choice in music, he replies: "You kids...Don't know shit about music either. Especially you Indian kids. You all have been spoiled by those drums. Been hearing them beat so long, you think that's all you need. Hell, son, even an Indian needs a piano or guitar or saxophone now and again" (30). Every other Indian who fought this colonization process before him would disagree. Victor's father has been enveloped by colonization and has been taken in by mainstream America. Victor's father only seems to spread the feeling of complete colonization not just to the people he meets, but also to his wife and son. Victor's father represents colonization here as he left the tribe to drink and ultimately die.
Alexie, Sherman. The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight In Heaven. New York, New York: 2005.
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