Summary Application (TLRATFIH)

Summary Application (TLRATFIH):

In his essay, Coulombe examines the purpose and use of humor in Sherman Alexie's work as well as the criticism it receives. In doing so, Coulombe confronts the assertions of Alexie's critics who claim his bold use of humor perpetuates the notion of Indians as pitiable drunks and prevents white readers from seeing beyond these predisposed cultural typecasts. He argues that Alexie's multifaceted brand of humor, found in most of his works but most notably in The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven, is actually a critical element of the social and moral landscape of Alexie's writing, which uses humor as a means of both unification and revelation. To support this argument, Coulombe discusses examples of Alexie's effective use of humor in several of his short stories. By using humor as a tool to repair, protect, expose, and create, Coulombe asserts that Alexie unflinchingly bridges the gap between disconnection and unity. Alexie uses this carefully-crafted humorous platform to dispel generalized assumptions and encourage readers to embrace a shared sense of humanity. By periodically referring back to the complaints of Alexie's critics, Coulombe challenges their collective assumption that Alexie presents Indians as purposeless stereotypes that use sardonic humor to further pigeonhole themselves. He contends that by employing humor, however disconcerting or impractical it may seem, Alexie persuades both white and Indian readers to re-evaluate their preconceived social and moral notions in order to reach a new level of clarity, connection, and empathy.


According to Coulombe, the act of storytelling and its ability to foster “self-knowledge and social awareness” is readily apparent in Alexie’s emotionally complex -- and not easily unraveled – stories (95). He claims that “by creating situations that resist formulaic responses, Alexie fits into a longstanding tradition of Indian storytelling” (97). This method of storytelling closely links Alexie with “Trickster” and Thomas Builds-the-Fire, who both expose distorted realities and incite listeners to “rethink the circumstances” that create it (Coulombe 97). The “painful and wrenching [realizations]” that Alexie conjures in his stories prompt his readers to “correct” their “complacency and resistance” to a culture that is largely preserved in the wisdom of storytelling. By crafting stories with deeply rooted sadness and indistinct resolutions, Alexie forces “readers to re-evaluate accepted ways of thinking” so that there might be “the potential for increased understanding” (Coulombe 97-98).

This notion of storytelling as crucial to shedding light on the issues that plague Indians is represented in Alexie’s story “A Train is an Order of Occurrence Designed to Lead to Some Result.” The central character, Samuel Builds-the-Fire (grandfather to Thomas) has “the gift of storytelling” (Alexie 132). Sure that his stories were capable of teaching the people around him how to turn their world “into something better,” Samuel spread his wisdom until the day came when “all the younger people on the reservation had no time for stories” (Alexie 134-135). After working in a motel and witnessing first-hand the tragic circumstances that befall Indians, “the stories waiting to be told left [Samuel] and never returned” (Alexie 137). Samuel retreats into a bar after being let go from the job that exposed him to so many horrors, despite having watched the people around him relinquish their dreams for the anesthetic of alcohol. With one drink, Samuel “knew all about how it begins; he knew he wanted to live this way now” (Alexie 134). Here, Alexie underscores the seemingly inescapable forces of “fear and failure” that can invade even the most spiritually in-tune Indian in the guise of drunken clarity, rendering them numb. Through this sad yet caustic account of the fall of a former storyteller, Alexie exposes the raw, inevitable conflict that paralyzes the modern Indian: “At the halfway point of any drunken night, there is a moment when an Indian realizes he cannot turn back toward tradition and that he has no map to guide him toward the future” (Alexie 134). The “world [Alexie] depicts” in this story, while it offers no simple resolution or answer, “provides an emotional and intellectual meeting ground for his readers to reconsider reductive stereotypes” (Coulombe 96-97). Rather than present Samuel Builds-the-Fire as merely a one-dimensional drunken typecast, Alexie uses elements of storytelling and humor to “provoke [his] readers to rethink the circumstances that allow the sad and sardonic humor” (Coulombe 97). By crafting an empathetic place in which readers of all backgrounds can dissect layers of meaning, Alexie “adds a complex new dynamic to the communal territory allowed by stories” (Coulombe 98). This narrative strategy allows Alexie to transcend the “purely logical … or traditional efforts to promote understanding” and instead engage his readers through a shared sense of humanity that ultimately “necessitates analysis, clarification, and … identification” (Coulombe 96).



WORKS CITED:

Alexie, Sherman. The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven.
New York: Grove Press, 2005.

Coulombe, Joseph. “The Approximate Size of His Favorite Humor: Sherman Alexie’s Comic Connections and Disconnections in The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven” American Indian Quarterly 26 (winter 2002) : p. 94-115. Project Muse. Ohio University Lib. Athens, OH.