1 Introduction

1 Introduction The primary aim of this thesis is to analyse Sherman Alexie’s novel Reservation Blues and his short story collection The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven in relation to the theme of alcoholism among Native Americans in the twentieth century. Sherman Alexie is a contemporary Native American author who was born on the Spokane Indian Reservation. The lives of Native American people living in the area are reflected in Alexie’s works. As many of these Natives 1 face a problem with alcohol, the situation is depicted in Alexie’s books and the subject can be fruitfully examined in the selected works. Moreover, Alexie has experienced similar kinds of problems in his life and some of the characters’ alcohol dependence has been inspired by the writer’s former years of heavy drinking. Alexie explains the connection between the alcohol theme in his work and his drinking years in an interview with Joelle Fraser: “You are an addict – so of course you write about the thing you love most. I loved alcohol the most. That’s what I wrote about.” Alcohol has proved to be the medication for both Alexie’s and his characters’ hard times. In the selected books, alcohol serves as a means of self-defense against the outer world. However, the attempt to escape the situation through alcohol has shown itself to be a rather short-term help and does not heal the sufferings of the examined protagonists. In his books, Alexie paints a portrait of the Spokane Indian community and he reveals the struggles of the characters to survive in a world which does not offer many chances of a fulfilled life. As depicted in Reservation Blues and The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven , most Spokanes deal with their misery by drinking. Alcohol consumption is very widespread among the group, as it is among Native Americans in 1 The term Natives is used interchangeably with the term Native Americans throughout the thesis. However, in some sources the term American Indians may appear. 5 general, and alcoholism is a frequent cause of death among contemporary Native Americans. A position paper of the Native American Health Center supports this argument: “The estimated rate of alcohol-related deaths for AI/ANs 2 as a whole is much higher than it is for the general population” (“Proposition 63”). Cases of death due to alcohol are depicted in Reservation Blues and The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven too. However, these works have more in common than the description of such cases. What connects Reservation Blues and The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven is also their main characters and their stories. The characters of Victor, Thomas Builds-the-Fire and Junior figure in both books. These Native Americans are younger in the collection than in the novel where the three are in their thirties (“Alexie, Sherman”). The men’s age difference in the books provides a sufficient background to the protagonists’ development and their life experience, which creates the impression that their stories are in a chronological sequence. Victor, Thomas 3 and Junior fit into the larger context that Alexie makes by describing these Native Americans’ everyday life. At the same time it is possible to explore some other characters’ struggles with life on the reservation and their later battle with alcoholism. Some appear in both Reservation Blues and The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven , each book revealing various facts about the characters, and the others are found only in one of the works. Nevertheless, the minor characters all supplement the picture of the Spokanes’ efforts to survive in what they mainly think is a hostile world to them. The desperate situation of the Spokane and the help that they accept in the form of alcohol with its later effects are recurrent themes also in Alexie’s poems. Some of his 2 AI/ANs – American Indians/Alaska Natives (“Proposition 63”). 3 Thomas Builds-the-Fire’s name is shortened to Thomas both in this thesis and in Alexie’s books. 6 poems have been used to highlight the situation in Reservation Blues and The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven . The poems refer to the Spokanes’ heavy drinking and all its consequences. Alexie’s poems with alcohol themes sound like little stories and the similarities in his poems echo the concerns and life stories of his characters in the prose works. Alexie develops the problem of heavy drinking further in the books while he depicts the native people’s life experience in more detail. Alexie’s acknowledgement of the Spokanes’ alcohol problems has been criticized by current residents of the Spokane Indian Reservation. Many of the reservation inhabitants do not like the way in which Alexie pictures the area and its people. Many members of Alexie’s tribe respond to his writing in a way that is similar to the opinion of a librarian at the Spokane Tribal Campus of Salish-Kootenai College, Mikki Samuel. Samuel says of Alexie: “What people on the reservation feel is that he’s making fun of them. It’s supposed to be fiction, but we all know who he’s writing about. He has wounded a lot of people” (qtd. in Egan). However, despite negative reactions received on the reservation, Alexie “is a celebrity” in Seattle where he now lives with his wife and two sons (Egan). Alexie has gained high critical praise for his work. Out of Alexie’s works, The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven and Reservation Blues were the first books of prose which won Alexie fame. Many Web sites focused on Alexie’s biography mention his awards. For example, it is possible to find at Sherman Alexie’s official Web site 4 that for The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven Alexie received, among other prizes, a PEN/Hemingway Award for Best First Book of Fiction, and for Reservation Blues he won the Before Columbus Foundation’s American Book Award and the Murray Morgan Prize. Alexie admits that his experience on the Spokane reservation inspired his writing: 4 For Sherman Alexie’s official Web site see “Awards and Honors” in the Works Cited list. 7 “Most of that stuff I write about happened to me or somebody I knew” (qtd. in Egan). Although the Spokanes complain about Alexie’s recurrent motifs, the author points out that what he portrays is not so far from reality. In an interview with Tavis Smiley, when asked what it was like growing up on the Spokane reservation, Alexie answers that such issue has its pros and cons. According to Alexie, growing up on the reservation is fine but on the other hand there is quite a lot of loss due to alcoholism. These losses, both in the figurative and literal sense of the word, can be observed in the examined books. In an interview for Cineaste magazine, Alexie says that “Lone Ranger and Tonto [is] really soaked in alcohol” (qtd. in “Sending”). No matter how sad and tragic the modern Native American life of Alexie’s characters is, he makes the image less severe by his use of humour. Dennis and Joan West observe that “humor often finds its way into the darkest moments.” In Reservation Blues there are also some satirical and serene parts so that the affected can bear the burden of the desperate situation. The power of humour is far reaching. Laughter often replaces the characters’ fear: “The more desperate the problem, the more humor is directed to describe it. Satirical remarks often circumscribe problems” (Deloria qtd. in Coulombe 100). Where humorous remarks are not enough, alcohol takes their place and helps to create such remarks. That alcohol helps the books’ characters release their inner tensions so that its use fills the role of medication for its users can be noticed in the works. However, what also can be seen is that such medication often makes the characters’ problems, their consequences and the people’s later “wounds,” deeper. 1.1 The Organization of the Thesis Although varied approaches to the theme of alcoholism among Native Americans are possible, what leads to the problem of heavy drinking in Alexie’s books and the 8 potential impact on the affected shape the focus of this thesis. Based on the way in which Alexie depicts the problem, the topic is analysed from the point of view of history and sociology. Information on Native American history of oppression is provided in connection with the examination of Alexie’s works as this history is considered one of the leading causes why many Native Americans take up heavy drinking. Together with this issue, Native Americans’ first historical contact with alcohol is described. Jack S. Blocker Jr. deals with the introduction of alcohol to Native Americans in his essay on drinking in the United States from 1400 to 2000. Blocker’s essay is included in the book about social and cultural history of alcohol edited by Mack P. Holt and has been used as one of the principal sources for this work. After discussing alcohol among Native Americans in a historical context, I present the conditions on most contemporary Native American reservations. These conditions support the idea that life on the reservations is not easy for their residents. Then, apart from information on the Spokane Indian Reservation itself, getting the facts from the official site of the Spokane Indian Tribe, I concentrate on Alexie’s background, particularly the aspects that are bound up with the issue of alcoholism. Among other things mentioned in the first, theoretical, part, some information from the field of medicine and the body’s reaction to alcohol is provided to support the evidence given by the cases in Alexie’s books.

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