The Spokane Reservation: Sherman Alexie's Poignant Stories of Native American Struggles

Introduction

This is a collection of short stories by the renowned writer Sherman Alexie. The stories depict the lives, troubles, and experiences of a Spokane Indian community living in a reservation.

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The Significance of the Book

This piece of writing chronicles the lives of a poor Native American community living in a reservation called Spokane. Several themes such as poverty, violence, alcoholism, familial, and societal issues permeate this work. It reflects on the lives of both the Native Americans as well as the entire American population as these themes resonate with both the old and the modern society. The book allows for some otherwise serious and mundane topics such as tragedies like murders, car wrecks from accidents, and alcoholism to be discussed openly and in a less daunting way. The lives of the characters seen through the interconnection of the stories and the roles they play in the development of both the plots and the flow of the book create a relatability with the audience or the overall society. People have at some point in their lives experienced pain, failure, and loss. The book allows the reader to view society in different lenses through the different characters and their embodiments.

It also a ray of hope for people dealing with the issues mentioned above including hopelessness and prejudice. This is because even though the characters are faced with such rampant and wrecking problems, also though they experience failure time and again, they are accorded a degree of respect as they try to find ways of surviving the chaos. For instance, Victor, in a bid to take his mind off his family problems including poverty, his ever-fighting uncles, and his parents' alcoholism, buries himself in playing basketball. Also, even though most of the adults in the book are drunks, they try to battle alcoholism, some lose and others win. For instance, Victor and his mother successfully get sober while his dad never did. The themes discussed in this book are universal which increases the magnitude of the book's significance.

The Threat to Culture and its Effects on the Lives of the Characters

In spite of their struggles and challenges, Victor and the Spokane community try so hard to cling to their traditions. It is terrifying for them to think that their culture is eroding which Victor suggests is happening the way fry bread pieces fall away. The reservation is endowed with an attitude of hope coated with realism and a solid sense of community as the Spokanes determine to survive and endure their circumstances and hardships despite the odds. The author explains the Native American experience by eluding to the popular American culture. The characters the Lone Ranger and Tonto are symbolically used to represent the white Americans and the Native Americans respectively. Although the characters are portrayed as working together traditionally, the author puts them at odds and imagines them resolving their conflict through a fistfight which is a significant factor as such fights are used to resolve long-standing differences.

The characters are often observed trying to fathom what it means to be an American and an Indian in their quest to find their identity. For instance, Victor is afraid that the influences of the white culture are taking away theirs likening it with falling pieces of fry bread. The cultural icons that were characteristic of the twentieth century such as television, convenience stores, and soft drinks are played against the Native Americans constant values of tradition, family, and community. In some of the stories including "The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven," itself and "Crazy Horse Dreams," the characters are seen as being weighed down by the pressures of trying to up to the idea of an ideal Indian. Even though the Native Americans desire the unusual life of modern America, a strong nostalgia and embarrassment that pulls from their native heritage of traditions and ingrained values over thousands of years put them at crossroads. The two are at odds just like Victor gets into a fight with Thomas who is a symbol of their traditional culture.

Imagining the Reservation

As the mainstream American culture overpoweringly weighs down on the Native Americans, their resilience and survival are attributed to the power and potential of their imagination. The author makes a significant statement about the strength of the Native Americans using a mathematical equation as follows; Survival = Anger * Imagination, suggesting that imagination is the only survival on the reservation. The Spokane Reservation community coped better with the help of their ability to imagine a better life with social situations which vastly manifests in their storytelling. For example, the narrator in "A Good Story," makes up a lighthearted story at his mother's request to help take their minds off their current state of poverty and hopelessness. In addition to their limited expression in society, the survival of their culture is threatened by a materialistic society. Native Americans felt connected to their traditions through storytelling which was a product of imagination, which only cemented the necessity of creativity and the impact it had on their lives.

The author shows clearly how powerful this imagination was through the determination and the resilience of the Indians to preserve their culture despite the anger of suppression and prejudice from modern American culture. It is the potential of that imagination that enabled people on the reservation to cope with their struggles such as alcoholism, injuries from accidents, death, and poverty. It allowed them to allude to a time when their lives and situations had changed to be more favorable. However, the author is keen to point out that regardless of the power and potential of this imagination, it was only necessary but not enough because their situations could not change by just imagining them to have changed.

Many are the social and personal hardships experienced by the Spokane community including murder, alcoholism, poverty, violence, and a possible erosion of their culture. However, their resilience and imagination include some of the survival tools that make life more bearable for them.