Women have always faced oppression. Society's patriarchal nature places women in positions where their power is limited. The governmental abuse of Native American women is evidence of a patriarchal society. Native American authors Sherman Alexie,...

In Sherman Alexie's "The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven", the past is never really past. The aftershocks of 500 years of Native American persecution, oppression, and neglect continue to haunt the world of the reservation, in the form of...

Sherman Alexie composed “The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven” as a series of digressions that shed light on the inner demons of the narrator. The story clearly demonstrates elements of Native American folklore, which are appropriate for...

Sherman Alexie's Native American characters in The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven are modern Indians who are often fixated on the glories of their past. In their modernization, one of the most blatant attacks on their pride and respect...

One of the worst feelings in the world is the one you get when it seems like you are trapped in the life you live. This is the feeling when the routine of your life gets so repetitive and tired that it’s stifling, and the city you live in becomes...

Sherman Alexie's The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven is a collection of short stories that explores the continuing Native American struggles in the modern era. The product of more than 500 years of oppression and persecution, the world...

Native Americans are often a forgotten minority, in history and in literature. The slaughter of native lives and the obliteration of their culture is an unfortunate American legacy. Luckily, writer Sherman Alexie has attempted to fill the...

Sherman Alexie’s The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven portrays the hardships faced by Native Americans at the hands of the overpowering force of mainstream American culture. Alexie uses multiple perspectives in his book to convey the...

Sherman Alexie uses embedded analeptic narratives throughout the chapter “This Is What It Means to Say Phoenix, Arizona” in Tonto and The Lone Ranger Fistfight in Heaven to emphasise the importance of both the characters memories and pasts on...

Sherman Alexie’s “The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven” is a collection of short stories all having to do with the relationship between Indians and white people or the growth and development of the main character, Victor. In the short...

White people have oppressed Native American populations in America for centuries, and racial biases continue to affect Native Americans today. In the short story The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven, the Native American narrator...

Life asked Death, “Why do people love me but hate you?” Death replied, “Because you are a beautiful lie and I am a painful truth.” - Anonymous

Edgar Allan Poe’s “Masque of the Red Death” takes place in 15th century medieval times where disease...

Throughout the book Flight by Sherman Alexie, the main character Zits is in search of where he belongs and why people have mistreated him throughout his life. In the midst of the action in the novel, Zits begins to experience character jumps,...

Humor is a powerful tool: it can break barriers, create friendships, establish cultural unity, or undermine/destroy people or organizations. In ‘ethnic’ literature, humor is often used to create a shared space for readers to come together; “humor...

Sherman Alexie, author of Flight and a biracial Native American, is quoted as saying “don’t live up to your expectations.” The Native American story is one of genocide, violence, and a battle for equality that still stands in the way of many to...

2007 American literature novel, Flight, is the story of a foster kid with zero hope, however Sherman Alexie’s (Spokane/Coeur d’Alene) unique approach makes it anything but an ordinary bildungsroman. Unlike in a conventional coming of age novel...

Zits’s many “awakenings” throughout Sherman Alexie’s Flight help him see the world through a new lens with each body and time he inhabits. In each of these bodies, he learns a little bit more about the way the world is unfair to everyone, rather...

The identity of Native Americans has been challenged by cultures other than their own. The different races in America have created a challenging environment for Indians to find their identity and idea of belonging. Two ways in which an identity...

“Society exists only as a mental concept; in the real world there are only individuals.” These are the words of the 19th century writer and poet Oscar Wilde, and they perfectly illustrate the oft-contentious dispute between individualism and...

Sherman Alexie’s first young-adult novel, The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, uses instances of sexuality, aggression, and profanity to expose a rawness in the cultural divide between Indians and Americans. The novel’s protagonist and...

The difficulty for most contemporary Native American authors is how to present their work to a populace who is not entirely familiar with the modern Indian situation and lifestyle. One way that Alexie Sherman and Velma Wallis achieve this in their...

Young Adult literature covers a wide variety of genres and subjects, covering topics that a vast majority of young adults are struggling with day to day. These novels are not limited to race or gender; however, minority characters are hard to come...

Junior summarizes his lifestyle when he says “I guess a fake life inside a cartoon is a lot better than…real life.” (Alexie 23) In Sherman Alexie’s book, The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, the main character is a Native American boy...

The stigma of death can be traced to many factors, including the fear of life’s end and the anticipation of pain. It is clear that although death is a natural process, the fact that so little (if not nothing) is known about it provides a source of...