Tonto’s Dysfunctional Family Tree Essay

America is a multicultural nation. This fact is undeniable. We are a mishmash of people from all parts of the globe, each with a unique story to tell. One of the struggles of being such a diverse nation is that different heathenish groups often fail to understand one(a)ness a nonher. I believe that cross-cultural writing is a decently tool that dispels ignorance and fosters greater multicultural understanding. Writing has the power to bring people together. There are many a(prenominal) prominent cross-cultural writers in the history of American literature. Each of them has added to a growing writing style that explores what its like to move to this country in pursuit of the ever-elusive American Dream. Sherman Alexie is one such writer. However, his theme is not one of searching for the American Dream. His theme addresses what happens when the American Dream lands on you. Sherman Alexie is Native American, and his stories expose one of Americas dirty little secrets. In the para graphs that follow, I will review Alexies feeling, the genre and style in which he writes, and the overall themes of his utilisation. I will analyze the goldbrick story, Every elfin Hurricane, taken from the anthology, The Lone commando and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven. Sherman Alexie was born on October 7, 1966 in WellPoint, Washington. He belongs to the Spokane kin group of American Indians called the Salish Group.At the time of his birth he had hydrocephalus, a disease in which the patient has an additional of cerebrospinal fluid. The alone option was to get an operation that he most likely would not survive. nonetheless despite these dire predictions, he survived an invasive surgery at the tender age of six months. He didnt just survive he thrived. Despite chronic seizures related to his condition, Sherman continues to power through life-time with extreme determination. He learned to read at the age of three and from then on nothing could h rare him back. As a teen atten ding a reservation school Sherman was shocked to discover his mothers name inscribed in one of his text take fors. The realization that the schools books were decades old led to his determination to leave the poverty-stricken reservation and get a thorough education elsewhere. He earned a spot in one of the top high schools in Reardon, Washington, where he was a star student and athlete. He proceeded to the University of Gonzaga, where his dream was to become a physician. After fainting from disgust in his image class, he had to abandon this dream. It was during this dark time period that hebegan abusing alcohol. He then changed his major, a determination that was based on his love for poetry and aptitude for writing.This change of direction brought him to Washington State University where he quit drinking and earned a B.A. in American Studies. Sherman Alexie began his professional career in 1990 when his work was published in Hanging Loose magazine. This initial success gave him the incentive to quit drinking at the age of 23, and hes been sober ever since. His first collection of short stories, The Lone ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven, was published in 1993, and that was just the beginning. In 1995 he launched his career as a novelist with Reservation Blues, an expanded version of the characters introduced in the previously mentioned collection. In 2007 he published a youthfulness adult novel, The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian. This novel is a reflection of his person-to-person experience growing up on the Reservation. Alexie is the winner of numerous honors and awards including the 2001 PEN/Malamud Award, the 1994 PEN/Hemingway Award, the 2007 National have got Award, and the 2010 PEN/Faulkner Award (www.fallsapart.com). Alexie is a advanced(a) writer who is not bound by a iodin genre.He has written poetry, novels, screen break aways, and most notably short stories. As the prevailing Native American short story writer of today, he creates unique imagery through recurrent memories, visions and dream sequences. He utilizes diary entries, faux newspaper articles, and multiple storytellers to tell stories within stories. One example of this is seen in Trial of doubting Thomas Build-theFire, where Thomas is personified as a number of historical figures. Alexie also uses cultural figures like looney Horse, Jesus Christ, Jimi Hendrix, and the Lone Ranger, to accentuate the complexities of his humble characters. According to Leslie Ullman He weaves a curiously soft-blended tapestry of humor, humility, preen and metaphysical provocation out of hard realities the tin-shack lives, the alcohol dreams, the bad luck and burlesque disasters, and the self-destructive fearlessness of his characters. (Ruby, M. 2011). I believe Ullmans comment is right on point. All of the stories in The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven challenge the reader intellectually, emotionally and spiritually.Alexie seems to have a two-fo ld purpose for tattle his stories. Firstly, he yearns for all Native Americans to keep their memories and heritage alive through the art of storytelling. Secondly, he communicates how modern Native Americans endure the assault of mainstreamculture on their heritage, imagination and spirit. While his writing is modern, traditional or historical elements like powwows, fancy dancing, alcoholism and poverty, are interwoven throughout. His writing juxtaposes sadness with humor, brutality with good-heartedness, and church property with materialism. He depicts numerous prominent characters in this collection, quite a than just one or two dominant characters. The compilation contains twenty-two short stories that are loosely interconnected. In the first story, Every Little Hurricane, Alexie introduces themes that play out through the rest of the book, such as poverty, despair, death, alcoholism, humiliation, and the hope of transformation. In this story Alexie explains the choice surr ounded by think backing the pain of the past, and creating a false reality to avoid that pain. Alexie uses the character master copy, who is nine years old, to explain this struggle. The story is told from overlords perspective during a unused Years Eve society at his parents home.Disturbed by the drinking and extreme violence, Victor comforts himself by imagining that a hurricane has caused the destruction, rather than his own tribe. The hurricane is a fitting metaphor because it hits on both the emotional turmoil and social pandemonium prevalent in Victors dysfunctional family. Victor is faced with the decision to either remember what really happened, or forget by instead imagining that a hurricane caused the devastation. Ultimately, he chooses to accept the reality of his pitiful childhood. However, sluice though he chooses to live in the truth, he resorts to finding comfort in the only way he can, which is between the two unconscious bodies of his drunk parents.Alexie po ints out that the dysfunction in Victors family is the result of a long-standing attitude on the Reservation. Violence has become habitual, and therefore accepted. This point is do when Adolph and Arnold (Victors uncles) begin to fight, getting mired in a misdemeanor that would remain one even if somebody was to die. . . . For one Indian killing another did not create a special kind of storm. (Alexie, p 3) Alexie implies that American Indians have internalized all of the violence that has been perpetrated against them since their first contact with Europeans, so that even murdering one of their own goes almost unnoticed.The oppression that they have suffered has turned them into silent witnesses. According to Victor, They were all witnesses and nothing more. (Alexie, p 3) As the story continues, Alexie points out thatalcoholism is the most serious problem facing Victors tribe. Victors most powerful memory is of his father crying over the absence of Christmas presents, mend getting drunk to escape the pain of the familys abject poverty. His father continuously opens and closes an empty billfold as if the repetition itself could guarantee change. But it was always empty. (Alexie, p 5) Alexie shows the pervasiveness of alcoholism with continual references to the smell and sagaciousness of sweat, smoke, whiskey and blood. These are constant companions of Victors existence, so that he actually believes that the alcohol seep through his parents skin might get him drunk, might help him sleep. (Alexie, p 9) From day one Victor is forced to gain survival skills to handle extreme fear and poverty.When he sees an old, drunk Indian man drowned in a mud puddle at the powwow (Alexie, p 7) he understands that alcoholism is not his familys problem alone. It is a problem of his entire culture. After completing The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven it is obvious to me that Sherman Alexie is as Bob Hershon so aptly put it, one of the major spoken communication voic es of our time. (Alexie, p xiii) His writing pulls the cover off of Americas dirty little secret of what life is like growing up on the Reservation. Many critics have vilified him for perpetuating the stereotype of the drunk Indian.This is not so. Alexie doesnt write about the destructive effects of alcohol on Indians due to some literary locating or prejudiced perspective. Simply put, he is truth telling. I have wracked my brain to come up with an overall theme for this piece of literature. Then it came to me in a flash. Why not use Alexies own words, I kept trying to figure out the main topic, the big theme, the overarching idea, the epicenter. And it is this The sons in this book really love and hate their fathers. (Alexie, p xxii)Works CitedAlexie, Sherman. The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven. New York, NYGrove Press, 1993, 2005.Falls Apart, Offical Website, http//www.fallsapart.com, 2013 Johansen, Bruce E. Native Americans Today A Biographical Dictionary. Santa Barba ra, Calif Greenwood Press, 2010. Ruby, Mary. Authors & Artists for Young Adults Vol. 85. Detroit, Mich Gale / Cengage Learning, 2011.