7 stories in The Lone Ranger

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.

On The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven, Alexie uses many different examples of humor while including stories of the past as well.  In many of them, he will include humor before the serious stories to kind of make the stories a little more light.  In the story of Amusements, Alexie talks of how Dirty Joe is drunk and passed out.  Victor and Sadie put him on a rollercoaster to get some fun out of it.  They end up laughing until they cried until reality set in.  All the "white faces" laughed at the Indian on the rollercoaster and soon they realized that this was not funny anymore.  Alexie used humor and reality to explain this story.

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, This is What it Means to Say Phoenix, Arizona, Alexie explains of the death of Victor's father.  He also explains of when Victor and Thomas Builds-the-Fire went to see the fireworks on the fourth of July.  This is a very good example of the relationship between the tribe's past and to the colonizing culture.  "You know," Thomas said, "It's strange how us Indians celebrate the Fourth of July.  It ain't like it was our independence everybody was fighting for."  Victor speaks of how it was weird for them to celebrate the "white people's" holiday.