The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven

The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven

• Genre: Fiction; short story collection
• Originally Published: 1993
• Reading Level/Interest: College/Adult
• Structure/Length: 24 stories; approx. 242 pages
• Protagonist/Central Conflict: In 24 interconnected short stories, readers follow two young men and the vivid characters they live with on the Spokane Indian Reservation. Longwinded storyteller Thomas Builds-the-Fire and his sometimes friend Victor Joseph, who is a recovering alcoholic, narrate their relationships and histories and dreams in stories that fuse narrative, diary entries, and prose poems with Alexie’s signature usage of dream sequences, surrealism, and flashbacks. In stories filled with humor and sorrow, Thomas and Victor show that there are no gaps between the past and present.
• Potential Sensitivity Issues: Racism; genocide; substance abuse and addiction; violence; sexual harassment. While Indigenous people self-identify in various ways, non-Indigenous students should be instructed to use the specific tribal name or “Indigenous” when referring to Indigenous people. Additionally, it is worth noting that Sherman Alexie was accused of sexual harassment in 2018 and later issued an apology, described in this article from NPR. Teachers may consider addressing this with students before reading Alexie’s work and possibly facilitate a discussion about the tensions that sometimes exist between an artist, their work, and their actions and behaviors.

Sherman Alexie, Author

• Bio: Born in 1966 in Spokane, Washington; Spokane and Coeur d’Alene novelist, poet, screenwriter, and filmmaker; writing draws on his experiences as an Indigenous American; born with hydrocephalus and had brain surgery at six months old; grew up on the Spokane Indian Reservation; parents were alcoholics; graduated from Washington State University; adapted The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven into the screenplay for the film Smoke Signals, which took top honors at the Sundance Film Festival; recipient of numerous awards and honors, including a National Endowment for the Arts Poetry Fellowship (1992) and a National Book Award (2007); lost several accolades and awards after he admitted to sexually harassing multiple women in 2018
• Other Works: The Business of Fancydancing: Stories and Poems (1992); Reservation Blues (1995); The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian (2007); War Dances (2009); You Don’t Have to Say You Love Me (2017)
• Awards: PEN/Hemingway Award (1993)

CENTRAL THEMES connected and noted throughout this Teaching Unit:

• Storytelling as Creative Agency
• Identity Through Dreams and Visions
• Cultural Belonging and Isolation

STUDY OBJECTIVES: In accomplishing the components of this Unit, students will:

• Develop an understanding of the role that storytelling plays in establishing a sense of identity and community.
• Study paired texts and other resources to make connections to the text’s three themes of Storytelling as Creative Agency, Identity Through Dreams and Visions, and Cultural Belonging and Isolation.
• Compare and contrast the text with other types of indigenous media, and create a multi-genre project exploring the personal intersections of storytelling and imagination.
• Analyze and evaluate themes, motifs, and other literary devices to draw conclusions in structured essays regarding storytelling, identity, relationships, and other topics.