Sherman Alexie, The Lone Ranger and Tonto fistfight in heaven

Intro)

Sherman Alexie, was born in October 1966. He grew up on the Indian Reservation in Wellpinit in Washington State. Poet, novelist, and screenwriter, Sherman Alexie won different prices like the 2007 Western Literature Association's Distinguished Achievement Award and the 2003 Regents' Distinguished Alumnus Award. He lives with his family in Seattle.

This text is an extract from The Lone Ranger and Tonto fistfight in heaven published by Atlantic Monthly Press in 1993.

Mini look on the text

It consists of a dialogue between an Indian father and his son. The scene takes place in the father’s car, with a song by Jimi Hendrix and that creates a reaction in the father. It remembers the different memories from the father.

Plan

I will comment on this excerpt, to show first how the father- son relationship is made. After, we see the points of view of the author on war and peace. Finally, I will show how the narrator conveys this impression of "magic", by music.

In this text, the narrator is the person through whose eyes the story is told. That person is a character in the story.

I- Relation père/fils

- They’re the emblems the confrontation of two generations that do not share the same history (line 24 at line 29)

-At the beginning the relationship is characterized by difference, and then evolves to complicity between the two characters.

- Alexie uses a familial language in the dialogue (“ain’t ever had no real war, l. 24; “yeah”, l. 44, “shit”, l. 31)

II- Point of view of author

- Alexie's stories focus on the United States government's to control Native Americans by occupying their land, and then placing them on reservations.

-Alexie's stories illustrate the living of Indian community torn apart by alcoholism and poverty.

-They stand for an oppressed people (“born soldiers”, l. 46).

For this he makes references to wars (l. 25; l. 45) and reservations (l. 53)

-For the narrator Indian's people are crushed in the society.

III- The...

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