The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven by Sherman Alexie

In the first half of Sherman Alexie's The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven I discovered a colorful, captivating and sadly realistic collection of stories. We follow Victor through his memories as a Native American growing up on a modern reservation. All the stories seem to be a mix of truth and story-telling. The present is often broken up by looking back to tell a story of the past. Each story is almost interconnected as if this book is one whole short story with chapters even though this is not the case. What makes it appear this way is the idea that Victor is the narrator and usually a character in each story. In Every Little Hurricane we are introduced to Victor as a nine year old boy who tells a story about a party in his home. Fights break which leads to more fighting. This story is told in a way that the narrator is telling the story but it seems to be coming from the memory of Victor himself. In Amusements the story is told in the first person by Victor himself. It is a story about One Indian names Dirty Joe who gets drunk at a carnival and Victor and Sadie put him on a roller coaster while he is passed out. It somehow makes you laugh and cringe simultaneously. Finally, in Fun House Victor is the narrator who is telling a story about his Aunt who one day has enough with her husband and son and spends the day floating on her back in the creek.
Most interesting to me in this collection is the character Thomas-Builds-The-Fire, he is a main character in and out of these stories. He seems to foreshadow events in Victor's life and on the reservation. In the short story The Trial of Thomas-Builds-The-Fire he is described as someone who has “a storytelling fetish accompanied by an extreme need to tell the truth (93).” He is on trial in this story for telling the truth. Often Thomas weaves stories from his minds eye and people don't like to hear them because they know that his stories hold the truth. So, instead they write him off as crazy or delusional. There was one story he told that, to me, foreshadowed Victor's character and summed up the stories in this book. In Alexie's A Drug Called Tradition Victor, Junior, and Thomas go out by the lake and take a drug in hope to see their calling or what they are supposed to do with their lives. To finally get their Indian names. Instead Thomas tells them, “Your past is a skeleton walking one step behind you, and your future is a skeleton walking one step in front of you... these skeletons are made of memories, dreams, and voices... That's what Indian time is. The past, the future, all wrapped up in the now (21-22).” This being the second short story in this particular collection really struck me. It is the reason, it seems, why the stories are told the way they are. The narrator's style of story telling always includes stories from the past, memories, and a question about tomorrow while happening usually in the present. I found this fascinating.

Posted by: Krista Behrends

Group Presentations

Choose one of the following. The presentation will be worth one response paper. The week your group presents, you do not have to turn in a response paper.

• Imagine you are turning one of the short stories into a film and are pitching it to producers who are considering funding the project. Make your vision for the project and your enthusiasm clear. Discuss setting, vital scenes, plot structure, and character. You can also discuss music, actors, and location. Act out one scene..

• Create a video or a short play of one pivotal scene from one of the assigned short stories. Show or perform this scene (try to incorporate setting) and discuss its importance to the story as a whole.

• Create your own response and interpretation to one of the short stories through any means you’d like, but submit the proposal in writing for approval at least one week prior to your assigned date to give your presentation.

The presentation should be 10 –15 minutes, should incorporate craft terminology, shed meaning on the text, and engage the class. Creativity is encouraged.

Ordering Jesus' Son

Since the bookstore doesn't have copies of Denis Johnson's Jesus' Son, please remember to order a copy this week.

Here are a few options:

1. Search www.IndieBound.org to order from your local independent bookstore.
2. www.powells.com or call 800 - 878 - 7323.
3. Try Abe books:
www.abebooks.com/servlet/SearchResults?an=denis+johnson&sts=t&tn=jesus%27+son&x=0&y=0

~karen

post

blog brittany rehain

Week 2 response upload... Revelation" by Flannery O'Conner

"Revelation" was interesting to me as well. Again it took me a moment to decide how I felt about the narrator, but soon found out that she is reliably nuts. Mrs. Turpin sees herself one way when it is quite obvious that many see her as the polar opposite. She is under the illusion that she is a kind, compassionate person who goes out of her way to help others. She portrays herself to the others in this waiting room as such. At the same time as she is coloring the picture of herself as a saint she has internal monologues that are utterly disturbing and plain disgusting. She often thanks god for making her who she is, and how she would feel if she were lower class. She often debates which extreme "negatives" she would rather be if forced to choose by Jesus himself. She debates weather she would rather be white trash or a person of color. Mrs. Turpin is compulsive and judgmental. We see examples of this throughout. For instance how she notices peoples feet all the time or how if it were her office the ash trey would be cleaned out on the regular. At the story's climax a young woman ends up attacking Mrs. Turpin, and says a haunting phrase to her. "Go back to hell you old wart hog". She dismisses the girl as a loon, but the statement begins to sink in to her psyche. She can not even close her eyes with out seeing an image of an old wart hog. Mrs. Turpin has a revelation at the story's end where she sees a procession of people ascending into heaven. Perhaps she will finally see that we all begin and end in the same place, that in heaven there are no classes. Maybe it is about time she implemented this into her life here on earth.

posted by Michael Clark

Week 2 response upload... "the girl with the blackened eye" by Joyce Carol Oates

I would first like to mention that the blog situation is already helping me uncover themes that I was having a hard time putting my finger on. The two stories that Stood out the most to me were "The Girl with the Blackened Eye" by Joyce Carol Oates, and "Revelation" by Flannery O'Conner.

In "The Girl with the Blackened Eye" we are told about the horrific experience of a young girl who was abducted for a period of eight days. The narrator seems to be reliable and starts off with explaining how normal she is, just like any other girl at her high school. How she was abducted, but also how it could happen to anyone. she compares her experience to situations that are out of our hands like a plane crash or being struck by lightning. That but with a human element. the human element is what makes this such a scary story, the fact that not only could this happen to any of our daughters, but that it indeed does happen. She begins to realize that her captor seems to be taking pity on her, giving her small morsels of food and drink, what she describes as barely enough to sustain life. Her abductor has been through this before and usually ends up suffocating his victims after he "tires of them". Interesting to me was that he knew early that he was not going to kill her, saying "I don't know why yet that you have been spared". She questions what makes her different than the other victims. She believes that she looks old for her age and when abducted she was mistaken for an older girl. That he only noticed how young she was after a few days of emaciation have set in, revealing her small mid-pubesent frame. He begins to break all his own rules, parading her around in his car in plain sight, even though there are signs of physical abuse all over her body and of course her blackened eye. At this time she begins to wonder if she will be noticed from the TV news reports or if she will be dismissed as a girl with a black eye who had it coming.
Also interesting to me was the transference that seems to be taking place here. the abductor and abductees seem to in some twisted way care for one another. This is not uncommon in kidnapping situations. He would carefully buckle her in the car and ask if she was OK. Meanwhile she has plenty of chances to escape but chooses not to for one reason or another. In the conclusion she makes an interesting point about how her life was most "real" for those eight days, and that everything else from then on was surreal.

posted by Michael Clark

Revelation by Flannery O'Connor

Krista Behrends

Hello everyone here is my response to this weeks readings.

The group of short stories that we recently read seems to have a common thread of loss and dealing with life’s obstacles. In Lorrie Moore’s writing People Like That Are The Only People Here: Canonical Babbling in Peed Onk, Flannery O’Connor’s Revelation, and Amy Hempel’s In the Cemetery Where Al Jolson is Buried, we see three different stories of friends and family dealing with struggles in the same setting. They all take place in a hospital or doctor’s office. The most interesting connection to me was Joyce Carol Oates’ The Girl with the Blackened Eye and Lorrie Moore’s piece. In both writings there is a disconnection of mind and body. Oates writing was about a girl who was abducted and tortured physically, sexually, and emotionally. It is her looking back at what happened. But, she disconnects herself from the situation by referring to herself in third person often and speaking about it as though she were not actually there. For example she says, “I’m saying these things were done to me but in fact they were done to my body mostly (201).” This is an understandable disconnection with one’s body when you go through such a dramatic event. She also looks back as though she is telling someone else’s story when she says, “In the backseat the girl was crying. If she had tears she would have cried (206).” This is another example of disconnection in the main character. Similarly, the Mother in Moore’s story always refers to herself as Mother with a capital “M” and Baby and Husband. She never gives the family names as if it was only a story and not real. As if giving names to the family members would be to admit that the pain was real. I thought this was an interesting connection.
The story that was most interesting to me was Flannery O’Connor’s Revelation. Interesting diction was used. Again you see the use of language to show the difference in class. O’Connor’s character Mrs. Turpin uses an interesting way to describe the other characters. Most of the surrounding characters are not given names. Rather, they are named after a trait that Mrs. Turpin notices. Such as “the well-dressed lady” or “the ugly girl” (254). The readers know early on that Mrs. Turpin is not a good person but Mrs. Turpin herself takes longer to have this revelation. Dramatic irony comes in to play when Mrs. Turpin sees the events that played out differently than the readers see it. She absolutely is an “old wart hog” (266). My favorite part of the story is when she is hosing down the hogs while screaming and challenging God. All the while she is hurting the pregnant sow and saying that she was a woman of God that did good for the church (273). Until she saw people of every color and walk of life walking toward the gates of heaven she still did not have her “revelation.” Even after that the reader still doubts whether Mrs. Turpin got the message. I truly enjoyed Flannery O’Connor’s storytelling skills in this short story.

Posted by: Krista Behrends

Gryphon by Charles Baxter.

Gryphon, a short story by Charles Baxter to me is an interesting and complex story. The story speaks of a Miss Ferenczi, an artsy nonconformist substitute teacher in rural Michigan. The children in the story are excited that their usual teacher Mr. Hibler is coming down with a cold. They know that if Mr. Hibler is sick they will get the usual run of the mill substitute teacher that will have them playing board games and recess all day. They think, like all younger grade-schoolers, that a day with a Sub is almost as good a day off. They are in for a surprise when Miss Ferenczi is called in for duty. Miss Ferenczi starts out by immediately drawing a tree on the blackboard, this seems harmless enough, but when questioned why she was drawing this she simply said "because this room feels like it needs a tree that's why". The students are realizing that the day of fun they had expected was not going as planned. Miss Ferenczi immediately established that she was not going to be like the other substitute teachers by issuing an ultimatum to the staring students. She warns that the children not stare at her. That they may continue to stare until the bell rings but after class begins she will not tolerate the staring. she said " looking I will permit. staring no. it is impolite to stare and a sign of bad breeding. You can not make a social effort while staring."
At first glance it seems that Miss Ferenczi is the real deal and should not be questioned, but soon after her underbelly is exposed. John a student from class answers the question six times eleven is sixty eight, and Miss Ferenczi said "fine". Then the students begin to question her, knowing that six times eleven is indeed sixty six. Here is where her pathology begins to take shape. She tell the kids that sometimes it is sixty eight. The kids continue to question her asking when is it sixty eight? she replies "in higher mathematics, which you children do not understand". I wonder if this was a common mistake and that Miss F. just was not paying attention and simply approved the wrong answer, or if she is so anti establishment that she will sabotage the minds of these conforming youth.
Miss Ferenczi begins to teach the unit on Egypt. Again she goes away from the book and its teachings and begins to try to explain reincarnation to the kids, scaring them a bit, using terms like you will be judged by how you lived "well or ill". This will determine weather you go up or down. She even tells the kids there is no death, so there is nothing to be afraid of. Now the kids think she is a loon but are too "in place" to say something to her. They let he continue on her rants about astrology in ancient Egypt. She really loses them when she starts to explain the Gryphon, a mythical half bird half lion.
On the bus home that afternoon the kids are vehemently discussing Miss Ferenczi's web of lies.
"Six times eleven isn't ever sixty eight, it is sixty six, I know for a fact" said the foul breathed Carl Whiteside. The narrator is in sensory overload when he arrives home, and begins to explain why his substitute teacher is crazy. His mother just dismisses him an shoves him in the direction of his afternoon chores. Before he starts however, he sneaks off and grabs the dictionary. Determined to prove Miss Ferenczi wrong once and for all he flips to the G's. To his surprise he finds the definition for Gryphon, and of course it tells of a fabulous creature with the head of an eagle and the body of a lion. Credibility restored... for now.
The next day is where she really goes too far. She begins reading the fortunes of these poor students. Which you may think is fine, telling some that they will be happy, or live a fruitful life. It is when the cards tell her that one of the children, Wayne, will die an untimely death. This does not go over well with the student. He tattles on Miss Ferenczi to the principal. Miss Ferenczi is told to go home. Our narrator is torn between his allegiance for his new idol Miss F. and his friend. he starts to tease Wayne about being scared of a card and that he is chicken. this ends in fisticuffs between Wayne and the narrator.
This story illustrates how naive children can be. That they really are hanging on our every word. I can relate to this one in many ways. I remember believing and questioning at the same time everything my grade school teachers would say. One teacher of mine, Ms. Toumey, told me once that if someone slapped me on the back while I was making funny faces that my face would be permanently stuck that way, FOREVER!! I believed her and even began telling everyone else to be careful because it could happen to them as well.

posted by
Michael Clark

Optional Alternative for Response Papers: Blog Posts

Hi Class,

Here's an option for posting to the blog instead of submitting a response paper.

Let me know if you have any questions.

~Karen

Optional Alternative for Response Papers: Blog Posts

Submit two blog posts and comment on two posts not your own.

Important: Cut and paste your posts and comments, print them out, and submit in class as you would a response paper.

1. Create two blog posts:

a. One post on the overall group of stories assigned:

Post should cover: What connects the stories? What craft issues tie them together (theme, voice, character, tone, etc.)? Write about the general impressions of the text.

b. One post examining one particular short story:

Focus on one particular story (preferably one you loved) from the assigned text. This should explain why the story engaged you and should not be a plot summary. It would be helpful to discuss the aims of the story and what is at issue both on the surface and sub-textually in the piece. You should point to specific moments in the text to illustrate your points. Be sure to address the impact of the story on you as a reader and what does it leave you with after you’ve read it? What moments were the most striking for you? Why did you choose this story to annotate?


2. Post Two Comments on two posts not your own:

a. Post two (civil) comments on other people’s blog posts. Further the idea presented with additional examples, respectfully disagree providing evidence from text, ect.


Optional:
Post links to short stories you’ve read and liked, author interviews with authors we’re discussing for this class, etc.

Hey there classmates!

This is the blog for the modern American short stories 3070.21 Monday night class.
It is simple to navigate and should be easy for all us computer illiterate night schoolers.
mike