“The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fisfight in Heaven” is a short story out of a book that is also titled

“The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven” by Sherman Alexie. This series of short
stories was released in 1993 and is still known today as one of his best pieces of work. Alexie is
a Native American writer, poet, and filmmaker who generally targets his work toward young
adults. Alexie has faced many issues in his life including alcoholism and some bad breakups
that make his writing personal and raw. He uses a very casual writing style, which is what is so
appealing about his work to young readers.
The initial thought upon hearing this is that maybe Alexie has a problem with alcoholism.
Unfortunately, there is a stigma involving Native Americans and their drinking problems.
Some aspects of this stigma prove to be true. He even attests to this in an interview, “My tribe
is filled with alcoholics. The whole race is filled with alcoholics. For those Indians who try to
pretend it 's a stereotype, they 're in deep, deep denial.” (Alexie).
Alexie’s father was a pretty mean guy who was an alcoholic himself. He spent much of
Alexie’s childhood being drunk and abusive. Alcoholism is a family disease, it’s genetic and
it’s likely that a child of an alcoholic will also become an alcoholic. This exact thing happened
to Sherman. When he was feeling that he was under a lot of pressure in college, he began
drinking heavily to cope. Though he has been sober for many years now, he wrote “The Lone
Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven” during his drinking time. When asked if he think
alcohol fuelled his creativity he said, “So there 's certainly a lot to be said for my desperate
years, my alcoholic years, my active alcoholic years as being’’
The Lone Ranger and Tonto, Sherman Alexie engages directly with the common cultural
stereotype—and devastating real-life epidemic—of Native Americans falling victim to
alcoholism, or engaging in excessive drinking. In the introduction, Alexie himself states that
he was “vilified in certain circles for [his] alcohol-soaked stories” when the collection
debuted. “Everybody,” he continues, “in the book is drunk or in love with a drunk.”
Throughout the text, the appearance of alcohol—or an alcoholic character—represents the
cultural loss, longing, and pain that all of these characters experience each day; alcohol
represents a void that opportunity might have filled in, were opportunities for success, health,
and happiness more readily available to the Indians of Alexie’s reservation.
Cultural pain and personal pain, in Alexie’s estimation, are inextricably linked. The personal
pain his characters experience is, of course, often born of strife between family members,
friends, and partners, but Alexie renders his characters’ pain in such a way that highlights its
connection to an inherited cultural or generational pain that comes from loss of land,
tradition, and agency.
“There is just barely enough goodness in all this,” says Victor of reservation life. The pain
and suffering that have permeated nearly every aspect of his childhood, and even his adult
life, are nearly insurmountable. Small moments of “goodness” or happiness are “barely
enough” to make a dent in the experience of that suffering, though they’re present. The
inability to fully inhabit moments of goodness is another result of the personal pain that
haunts most all of Alexie’s many characters.
The pain that many of Alexie’s characters have experienced is a result of a cultural void that
comes from the oppression and decimation of Native cultural life. This creates a bond on the
personal level, though it is one that is heavy with pain, loss, and even, for some characters,
deep resentment.