Shaina Alcheck

4/4/16
ENG 181
Project 2
Survival= Anger x Imagination and Then Some

When Sherman Alexie spoke at Emory University on Monday April 4, he

discussed grief and how he handles the Native American plight. During this lecture,
Alexie said What d you do in response to all this? Well number one you talk. (Alexie
4/4). This touches on a point which Philip Helrich makes about Sherman Alexie in his
essay Survival= Anger x Imagination. Heldrich makes the claim that Alexie uses dark
humor not only to point out historical and present conditions of inequality created by
white hegemony (Heldrich 25) but also to instigate a dialogue outside the dominant
discourse to address very real problems (Heldrich 26). While Helrich only discusses
these themes in Alexies novels The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven and
The Toughest Indian in the World, I found that these functions of Sherman Alexies
dark humor are also present in his novel Flight. However, I would argue that Sherman
Alexie addresses issues that were not just created by the white domination of Native
Americans, but also issues that Native Americans have created for themselves.
One of the things Heldrich claims Alexie does through his dark humor is
creates a dialogue outside the dominant discourse to address very real problems
(Heldrich 26). A scene in Flight which best highlights this is the scene right when Zits
gets to the Native American camp near Custers Last Stand. While Zitss first reaction is
awe, he almost immediately notices the humorously horrid smell of the camp. One of
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the most powerful lines from this is Justice never said anything about the smell of oldtime Indians. I never read anything about this smell. I never saw a television show that
mentioned it (Alexie 61). While this quote has undertones of disconnect from ancient
Native American culture, it also highlights the fact that these old camps were not a
utopia of Native American culture, and that they had their faults. This is very much
outside of the mainstream ideology that the past conditions for Native Americans had
exclusively cultural enrichment and development. In this scene Alexie is able to
highlight that the past Native American conditions existed as a society which was
perhaps more connected to the culture, but was still flawed.
Opening a dialogue is a reoccurring theme in Flight. In the beginning of the
novel, Sherman Alexie uses Zitss feelings towards to Ghost Dance to highlight his
feelings of isolation from the Native American community. When Zits is first asked by
Justice if he could preform the Ghost Dance, Zits responds I dont think one person can
do it well enough to make it work (Flight 31). This scene highlights the separation from
Native American people and culture that Zits has been forced to endure throughout his
life. However, on the very next page, Zits gives a more comical excuse, saying I dont
have rhythm (Flight 32). A teenage boy not quite being able to dance, even if the dance
had the power that the Ghost Dance supposedly has, is relatively funny. This scene
highlights Heldrichs theory that Sherman Alexies allows the reader to discuss very real
issues by including a humorous aspect (Heldrich 26). The reader may more openly
discuss the separation from Native American culture that many youth face today
because Sherman Alexie combined these feelings with comical male teen experience of
not having rhythm. Additionally, by including this scene Alexie addressed tribal youth
in terms they can understand (Heldrich 29).
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In his essay Survival=Anger x Imagination, Philip Heldrich makes the claim

that Sherman Alexie uses dark humor to point out historical and present conditions
of inequality created by white hegemony (Heldrich 25). In the novel Flight Sherman
Alexie both does this and goes further by exploring historical situations in which Native
Americans were the party at fault. An example in Flight in which Alexie does in fact
highlight how white domination impacted modern-day inequalities is when he takes Zits
back to Red River Idaho. In this scene, Zits becomes Hank, a white -1970s FBI agent
who collaborates with his racist partner who shoots an Indian (Flight ch.5). This
displays the inherent racism against Native Americans within the American federal
system, as well as the deep hatred within the average American white.
Yet, in the very next scene Sherman Alexie highlights an example of when the
fault was not solely on the white population by taking Zits to Custers Last Stand.
However, he does so in a way that includes some humor, which allows the reader to
discuss these issues in a less biased way. In the aftermath of the war, Zits sees atrocities
being committed by the Native American women and children (Flight ch.9).
Additionally, Zits is forced into the violence, when the father of the body he is inhabiting
wants him to slit the throat of a white soldier to get retribution for a crime committed
against the body. These crimes against the deceased were not necessary for the victory,
and highlight the deep-seeded hatred for the white population among every man,
woman, and child within the Native American community. However, when describing it,
Alexie has Zits say All around me, grandmothers are cutting off penises (Alexie 73)
which is pretty funny. This use of dark humor highlights the fact that the conflict
between Native Americans and whites is not solely one-sided, yet does so in a way that
makes this topic more accessible to all people, and thus more spoken about.
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Between the novels The Toughest Indian in the World and Flight, there is a
development in how Alexie uses humor in his work. Heldrich rightly makes the claim
that in many of the situations which Alexie addresses, his humor characteristically
acquires a more tragic tone. In Flight, Alexie continues to use humor to highlight many
of the characteristics of his protagonists which he has addressed in The Toughest Indian
in the World. Alexie creates a character Zits, who like some of his other characters,
seems largely unrecoverable (Helrich 34), mixed-blood (Heldrich 36) and containing
an anger that eventually leads to shooting and violence (Heldrich 36). These
similarities in characteristics seemingly indicate to the reader that the protagonist will
have the same abysmal prospects at the end of Flight that other protagonists with
similar characteristics have had. However, in Flight Alexie gives Zits a humorous but
happy ending, which allows the reader to feel hopeful rather than distraught by the
situation at the end of the book. Zits, a character whose past, once lost, seems largely
unrecoverable (Heldrich 34) has the opportunity to return to a loving family
environment. In his work Survival= Anger x Imagination, Heldrich only references
dark humor, yet Sherman Alexie has developed as a writer between the time he wrote
the novels The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven and The Toughest Indian in
the World to when he wrote Flight. In Flight, Sherman Alexie artfully uses humor to
address a completion of events, and regularity, rather than to highlight exclusively
rough situations. At the end of the book, Alexie plays with brotherly humor in Zitss new
home (Flight 176), which is both funny and indicative of the newfound normalcy of
Zitss life.
To define Alexies dark humor, Philip Heldrich references Alan R. Pratt and
how he uses Andre Bretons humor noir. This is indicative of how Heldrich uses
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sources throughout his text. Rather than contradicting sources, Heldrich uses the work
of others only to enhance or to help define his work. This creates a gap for the reader of
Heldrichs essay Survival = Anger x Imagination because we are unable to see the
antithesis to Heldrichs argument. While I personally did not find holes in Heldrichs
argument, I believe that Heldrichs argument would have been stronger if he had
defended it against naysayers.
At the end of his essay, Heldrich makes the claim that To understand him
[Alexie]- whether as a novelist, short-story writer, poet, speaker, or filmmaker- is to
recognize the importance of this hard-edged humor. (Heldrich 40). While I agree with
this sentiment, I think that it is equally important to understand what this humor does
for the reader. Sherman Alexies use of dark humor in his novels not only provides the
occasional laugh amidst the serious and tragic themes that he addresses, but, as Helrich
reiterates, it allows the reader to talk about the issues outside of what is so often
discussed. I believe that this is equally important, as the impact that the book has on the
reader is how these books will be remembered by readers everywhere.