Short Stories—The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven



Discussion Questions: provide textual examples for your answers

Short Stories—The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven

I propose we focus on the following stories:

“Every Little Hurricane” (1)

“Because My Father Always Said He Was . . . “ (24)

“The Only Traffic Signal on the Reservation Doesn’t Flash Red Anymore” (43”)

“This Is What It Means to Say Phoenix, Arizona” (59)

“The Fun House” (76)

“The Trial of Thomas Builds-the-Fire” (93)

1. How does Alexie construct Native American identity in the stories? What qualities or characteristics are exhibited by the person or characters? What are some cultural signifiers in the stories that let us know this is Native literature?

2. How and why does Alexie include history in his stories? What historical figures are prominent and why?

3. How does Alexie use the theme of pop culture in these stories?

4. How does Alexie make use of stereotype and or/ the rhetoric of race in his construction of identity?

5. Describe and comment on Alexie’s female characters. What do these depictions suggest to you about Alexie and/or Native women?

6. Comment on Alexie’s style and his use of language used to make readers stop and reflect and perhaps reconsider their normal perceptions. This could be something like, “reservation November night,” or “”Every highway in the world crosses some reservation.” Give examples of his unique style and what effect this style has on you, the reader.

7. What are your personal responses to the stories? What parts appealed to you the most? How did the stories make you feel? What passage(s) particularly evoked those feelings?

Screenplay – Smoke Signals: A Screenplay

1. In the Introduction to the screenplay, Alexie reports that his family was “living in the basement of the skyscraper called poverty” yet they spent $1000 on a VCR. Why do they do this? What else is important for us to think about in the Introduction? What is important for Alexie to convey here?

2. Comment on the adaptation of the stories in Lone Ranger to this screenplay. How did Alexie do it?

3. What did you learn from reading the screenplay? How is the screenplay different from either the short stories or the film? Is it helpful and/or valuable to read the screenplay when thinking about adaptation?

4. Alexie includes “Screen Notes” starting on page 151. What did you learn about the film by reading them? What do you think of his “Lessons Learned”? Tell us what you feel is most important/valuable about the “Screen Notes.”

Film- Smoke Signals

1. Smoke Signals is the first commercially successful film in which the writer, director, actors and crew are almost exclusively Native American persons. Why do you think this is important to the Native American community? Discuss how the representations of Indian people in Smoke Signals differ from "Hollywood" style movies; include the old Cowboys and Indians western genre as well as more contemporary films such as Dances with Wolves and Geronimo in your analysis.

2. Arnold (Victor’s dad) goes through a process of "disappearing" in which results in his vanishing from his family, his community, and eventually from the world. Discuss this “disappearing” and how it relates to the invisibility of Indian people in contemporary society.

3. Storytelling plays an important role in Native American communities, also in the film’s plot. What is the importance of story telling in Smoke Signals? Discuss the relationship between Victor and Thomas as it relates to Thomas’s role as the films primary storyteller. How does their relationship illustrate the tension between Native American traditional cultural values and contemporary realities?

4. The reality of Indian people in contemporary U.S. society is part of the consciousness of the characters in Smoke Signals. For example, Victor and Thomas refer to the U.S. as a foreign country, Arnold and Victor's basketball game against the Jesuits is described as the first time the Indians won since Columbus, etc. Discuss the interactions Victor and Thomas have with members of the dominant society (the White couple in the car accident, and the police officer, etc). What stereotypes are operating? What expectations do the various characters have based on the way Indian people are stereotyped?

5. What do you make of the soliloquy at the end of the movie? What are the sins of our fathers’ which must be forgiven?

6. What do you see as this film’s major themes? Consider the film’s title—what does it suggest to you. Compare Thomas and Victor’s plans for Arnold’s ashes? How do you read these actions/intentions? How have the two men’s relationship changed at the end of the film? How has Victor’s relationship with his father changed? Do you think Victor will in some way be different from now on, and if so, how?

7. What are the major changes made in stories in the adaptation of this film? In his essay “It Wasn’t Like That in the Book. . .” McFarlane writes that “the three large classes of film narration—mise-en-scene, editing, and soundtrack” present the story that has been transferred from page to celluloid (7). How do these three—mise-en-scene, soundtrack and editing—tell Alexie’s story?

8. We discussed Gerald Vizenor’s idea of the post-Indian, and the post-Indian warrior. How might this concept apply to Alexie and to Smoke Signals?

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