Sherman Alexie: Critical Analysis

Fighting the self in Sherman Alexie's "The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven"

Sherman Alexie's short story "The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven," relates the story of the narrator, an Indian who has left his reservation, who is adrift in the white world of Seattle. The narrator feels that everywhere he goes he is regarded like a threat -- even the 7-11. This leaves him in a constant state of anger, an anger that is intensified by alcoholism and a failing relationship with a white woman. Treated as someone who is prone to violence because of his race by a prejudiced society, the narrator eventually becomes violent, in a kind of unconscious self-fulfilling prophesy. He constantly fights with his white girlfriend. "In Seattle, I broke lamps. She and I would argue and I'd break a lamp, just pick it up and throw it down. At first, she'd buy replacement lamps, expensive and beautiful. But after a while, she'd buy lamps from Goodwill or garage sales. Then, she just gave up the idea entirely and we'd argue in the dark" (Alexie).

The narrator begins to turn against strangers because of his frustration and sense of personal disempowerment. Early on in the story, he tries to coax a 7-ll clerk to turn his back on him, sensing the clerk is frightened to do so because of the narrator's menacing appearance. Eventually the boy says "I was hoping you weren't crazy. You were scaring me" and laughs, and gives the narrator his order for free. At times like this it is unclear if the speaker is actually menacing or the victim of prejudice, since the clerk never explicitly makes a reference to the fact the narrator is an Indian, the narrator merely makes the assumption (Alexie). The narrator is, after all, wandering around at 3am in the morning and possibly drunk. The clerk does not refer to the narrator's Indian appearance although the narrator himself sees it at the source of the prejudice directed against him. Similarly, the narrator describes the aimless wandering he feels compelled to engage in which often results in him getting lost in a white neighborhood and being picked up by cops because of his rage, although in this instance the cops do admit to profiling him. Alexie implies that once someone is the victim of prejudice in one sphere of his life, he begins to see prejudice everywhere.

The narrator admits he treats his girlfriend badly, without real justification. "I walked through that relationship with an executioner's hood. Or more appropriately, with war paint and sharp arrows." (Alexie). The narrator cites his dreams as the reason for his behavior, dreams which depict Indian victimization at the hands of whites. "The most vivid image of that dream stays with me. Three mounted soldiers played polo with a dead Indian woman's head. When I first dreamed it, I thought it was just a product of my anger and imagination. But since then, I've read similar accounts of that kind of evil in the old West" (Alexie). The relationship between the violence and the dreams is symbolized in this paragraph: the narrator is violent and there is a personal basis for his bad behavior and alcoholism, yet there is also a link to a larger reality of the Indian's condition, namely that Indians are marginalized in white society.

When the narrator returns to the reservation, there is both acceptance and frustration. "When I got back to the reservation, my family wasn't surprised to see me. They'd been expecting me back since the day I left for Seattle" (Alexie). However, because the narrator left to go to college and seemed to be heading on a path to success (he was a notable basketball player in his youth), there is also a sense of a letdown, even amongst the most cynical members of the tribe. "I was special, a former college student, a smart kid. I was one of those Indians who was supposed to make it, to rise above the rest of the reservation like a fucking eagle or something. I was the new kind of warrior" (Alexie). But the narrator does not even apply for a job upon returning to the reservation and instead simply, aimlessly, shoots baskets although he has long let his body go to alcohol and drugs.

The story leaves a long silence in between the period in which the narrator left the reservation, a young, fit man full of promise and the violent, angry and alcoholic man he became. There is a suggestion that prejudice is the root of this sad transformation although it may not always have been overt prejudice. There is also palpable sense that Indians are apt to self-destruct because of the conditions they have suffered under, versus whites, even gifted Indians like the narrator once was. The turning point of the story comes when the narrator plays against a talented white player, a kid who can play the 'Indian' style of ball even better than the Indian players on the reservation. "He was too good. Later, he'd play college ball back East and nearly made the Knicks team a couple years back. But we didn't know any of that would happen. We just knew he was better that day and every other day" (Alexie). The presence of the white player underlines the difference between the young man the Indian once was and the self-destructive person he became.