If you’re interested in 1950s history and culture I recommend you to read the following extracts. If you want to know more about Jack Kerouac’s work I would suggest reading “On the Road” (1957) and “The Dharma Bums” (1958), Kerouac’s most well-known novels. These books lie at the heart of my analysis. If you would like to buy a copy of my thesis (incl. footnotes and works cited), let me know via email.

‘Scared of all this American wealth’:

Jack Kerouac and the Ambivalent Resistance to Post-War Consumerism and Mass Conformity

by Jens Kuestner (M.A.)

Extract 1

1. Introduction

Cultural rebels shared intellectuals’ obsession with mass consumption, even as they defined themselves as countercultural by denouncing its values and practices […].

– Lizabeth Cohen

The pursuit of prosperity after World War II substantially transformed 1950s American society and established a culture of affluence and mass consumption. The Cold War era in America was shaped by a shift in economy and politics, “with major consequences for how Americans made a living […], what and how they consumed” (Cohen 2003: 8). A culture of prosperity became synonymous with patriotism, anti-communism and conformist conservatism. However, despite the dominant rise of a capitalist consumer culture, Avant-Garde movements partly resisted those tendencies and tried to develop alternative attitudes towards the “Consumer’s Republic” of which they were part (8). Often disappointed by American conservatism in terms of sexual orientation and a focus on materialism, counter movements, such as the Beat Generation, renounced the concept of political conformity and wrote in order to express their alternative views.

Jack Kerouac, the major voice of the Beats, particularly emphasised the dark side of the consumer culture and formulated an alternative lifestyle to materialistic values. His most famous travel narratives On the Road (1957) and The Dharma Bums (1958) both comment on the 1950s American consumer culture in that they depict an escape from mainstream consumerism. The two narratives have been regarded as “quest novels” whose characters try to seek alternative truths on a road that deliberately abandons a consumer’s world (Charters 2000: xiv, xxix, Douglas 2007: xix – xxi). However, it is worth noting that Kerouac is rather ambivalent in his depiction of consumerist culture. Torn between the fear of having to accept the American dream of prosperity and the resistance to US consumerism, his characters present hybrid forms of consumers, often unable to advance a clear-cut opinion on the society of which they are part and to which they even want to belong.

Extract 2

2. The American Fifties: America in an Age of Consumerism and Mass Conformity

[An] American working man can own his own comfortable home and car and send his children to well-equipped elementary and high schools and to colleges as well. They [the Soviets] fail to realize that he is not the downtrodden, impoverished vassal of whom Marx wrote. He is a self-sustaining, thriving individual, living in dignity and in freedom.

– Dwight D. Eisenhower

In the 1950s America saw an unprecedented economic boom that not only transformed its post-war economy but also changed the way the American people perceived themselves as members of US society. A consequence of “the expanded production called for by World War II” (Ewen 1977: 205), mass consumption became synonymous with the familiar American Dream, a dream of equal prosperity and social equality (Cohen 2003: back cover). Soon consumers became part of a society that promoted consumption on a large scale but also demanded consenting to an ideology that was considered the basis for a successful consumer society. With the growing threat of the external powers of communism, America promoted its capitalist system as the solution to overthrow social inequality and to secure political tranquillity. Until today America’s Fifties are associated with a culture of wide-spread political conformity, where one had to choose between “Soviet-style communism or American capitalist democracy and all that went with it” (Douglas 2007: xix).

A closer look at 1950s politics soon reveals that the American Fifties were not “generally tranquil, secure days”, an image that was nurtured by America’s politics of conformity, but days of intense political and social unrest (Ellwood 1997: vii). Whereas the wider population prospered from post-war affluence, there was a dark side to the Consumer’s Republic: amid the nation’s material comfort, social inequality (particularly in the African- American communities) and the ongoing discrimination against racial minorities were serious issues on the agenda of post-war politics. Moreover, the enthusiasm of a newborn consumer society was not able to hide the greatest post-war struggle, namely, the politics of containment against the “worldwide spread of communism” and the fight on the home front against alleged Soviet sympathisers (Jacobs 2005: 244, Cohen 2003: 124).

In the following, the nature of American consumerism in the 1950s will be looked at in detail, with a focus on how people consumed, what they believed in and how they perceived themselves as individuals. The question arises as to why, in a time of deep political unrest, America still succeeded in establishing a culture of mass consumption. Furthermore, the afore-mentioned political conformity, so typical for this era, will be taken into consideration to juxtapose mainstream political attitudes with resistant tendencies to such politics by minority groups and non-conformists, such as the members of the Beat Generation.

2.1 Consumerism and Suburbia: The Middle Class Goes Home

The dream of an abundant life was never more present in the history of American consumerism than during the economic boom of the 1950s. The techniques of mass consumption, such as “advertising, and the growing utilization of mass communications on the national levels” had already been established in the 1920s (Ewen 1977: 197, 206). The “promise of material well-being” was a familiar ideal, particularly crucial in America’s Golden Twenties when the establishment of a consuming culture came into being (198):

The corporate message of the twenties was loud and clear. Modern times had arrived, defined largely by the burgeoning expanses of mass production, and addressing the “new freedoms” posed by the modern marketplace. (197,198).

However, due to severe problems after WW I, such as inflation and the middle class’s fight against the high cost of living, mass consumption on a middle-class level did not take place “on a mass scale” until the 1950s (Jacobs 2005: 53, 54). An ideology of economic abundance for the average family could only be introduced to American society with the strengthening of the middle class (Jacobs 2005: 246). In fact, as one of his policies President Eisenhower emphasized the importance of the middle class as a purchasing power to a prosperous economy (Cohen 2003: 152, 153). With a political focus on the average worker, a powerful tool in the establishment of mass consumption, American post-war politics deliberately developed a “social service state for the benefit of the mass middle class” (Hays quoted in Cohen 2003: 153). As a matter of fact, America’s middle class was given substantial governmental support by the so-called GI Bill of Rights, introduced in 1944, and financial support for housing construction (Cohen 2003: 118).

Most significant is the development of the middle class as part of a society of mass consumption. The white-collar job sector was expanded, and “by 1957 for the first time it outnumbered the blue-collar sector of 25 million by half a million employees” (Cohen 2003: 164). As a result of well-paid positions and governmental support with regard to house construction and higher education, more and more Americans were able to consume on a larger scale:

Many families of the 1950s had more disposable income than ever before and were busy buying dishwashers, television sets with big antennae to while away their evenings, and new cars every year. Some well-off people would take long trips over the expanding freeways each summer or even travel to Europe, which was still cheap (Ellwood 1997: 2).

An unprecedented development described here by historian Robert S. Ellwood, it gave middle-class families the opportunity to establish a whole lifestyle based on mass consumption for the first time. Commodities, such as cars, television sets and other household appliances that had been regarded as luxuries, were now taken for granted (Cohen 2003: 123). The majority of American families, “not a few individuals, nor a thin upper class” (Kantona 1964: 3), were now part of an abundant society characterized by what has become known as “conspicuous consumption” (Veblen 1924: 68). According to Fortune, in 1956 there were 16.6 US families “with more than five thousand dollars in annual earnings after taxes”. According to the US magazine, in 1959 “there would be 20 million such families – virtually half the families in America” (Halberstam 1993: 587). A significant element in a mass consumption society, “the group with middle-range incomes” suddenly outnumbered “the groups at top and bottom” (Westley and Westley 1971: 7).

The era of the middle class, pointed out by John Kenneth Galbraith’s The Affluent Society, had arrived, an era characterised by a “great and quite unprecedented affluence” (Galbraith 1969: 1). In his classic study Galbraith considers the nature of the affluent economy of the 1950s and attributes it to the rise of the middle class. He demonstrates how the strengthening of the working and middle classes, benefiting from raising incomes, helped to maintain an overall affluent society. Galbraith, a New Deal sympathiser, considered the support of weaker classes in particular to be the key to a flourishing market and the establishment of general welfare (Galbraith 1958: 155-163, Ellwood 1997: 158, Cohen 2003: 301). As more and more blue-collar workers were integrated into the middle class, as for instance, the numerous steelworkers in Pittsburgh, the working class enjoyed middle-class status (Cohen 2003: 155). Millions of new middle-class families, with higher incomes than ever before, shaped the marketplace to a large extent in that they became the most important purchasing power in the nation. The average family was now able to afford a high standard of living, expressed by the development of a new way of life, namely, the emerging suburban lifestyle (164).

As a result of an immense growth in population, “from 150 million in 1950 to 180 million in 1960, the largest increase in a single decade in history”, numerous middle-class white families left the city and settled into newly built suburbs. Thus, a consumer culture was established which was unprecedented in US history as it was based around a suburban lifestyle (Ellwood 1997: 9). The phenomenon of suburbia arose as a result of the so-called “postwar baby boom”, coupled with the escape of the middle class into the new residences separated from the city. Homeownership became the crucial status symbol of the consumer (Oakley 1990: 125, Ellwood 1997: 2, 23).

The increasing consumption of cars, TVs and various other household appliances particularly helped to sustain the economic boom. “Billions of dollars were transacted in the sale of household appliances  and furnishings, as refrigerators, washing machines […] and the like became standard features in postwar American homes” (Cohen 2003: 123). However, this shift in consumer behaviour would not have been possible without the development of a society that cherished the home as the basis of the consumer lifestyle. In the early 1950s, homes were built “at a rate of over a hundred thousand a months” (Ellwood 1997: 23). Cohen provides detailed facts and figures on house construction in the 1950s:

One out of every four homes standing in the United States in 1960 went up in the 1950s. As a result of this explosion in house construction, by the same year, 62 percent of Americans could claim that they owned their own homes, in contrast to only 44 percent as recently as 1940, the largest jump in homeownership rates ever recorded. And in another turning point, suburban residents of single-family homes came to outnumber both urban and rural dwellers (Cohen 2003: 123).

With the rise of the middle-class suburbs, American citizens soon identified with the home as the way to individual or, as Cohen puts it, “privatized mass consumption”, combined with a “civic responsibility” to consume on a mass scale to support America’s economic growth (195, 113). In the average middle-class home, the consumer was finally able to indulge in a lifestyle predominantly shaped by purchase. The home, “the one secure, private setting where a person can express in material form what they deeply value”, became the embodiment of a mainstream consumer culture that saw itself mainly as a society of purchasing citizens, that is, citizens who fulfilled both their duty and their desires as purchasers (Cooper-Marcus 1985: 1, Cohen 2003: 8, 113,119, also cf. Creswell 1993: 258, 259).

The new suburban home seemed best to embody the new American way of life, a life based around the consumer. Soon a life of leisure and luxuries was predominantly focused on the home. In the living room, “where husband , wife, and growing children could gather in the evening, or, among the sophisticated, for the cocktail hour, to watch television […]”, the family came together and cherished a lifestyle dominated by purchase (Ellwood 1997: 3). The new suburbs, separated from the sprawling, noisy city centres, offered everything the average middle-class family needed: a home with all its appliances, and the large shopping centres that supplied them with all the household items they needed (Wood 1959: 63, Cohen 2003: 257).

Life in an environment separated from the big cities was in part motivated by purchase of one or even several cars. The significance of the automobile in the 1950s is important to stress. “Automobile sales boomed as well, with new-car sales quadrupling between 1946 and 1955, until three-quarters of American households owned at least one car by the end of the 1950s” (Cohen 2003: 123). With one or even several cars the average middle-class family became mobile and could afford to move into a suburb at a distance from the husband’s workplace. Men became commuters. The housewife, on the other hand, could use the car to drive to the nearest shopping mall, often miles away from the home. “Their enormous automotive mobility and the decentralisation of their shops and playgrounds have tended to make conventional city life obsolete” admitted the US magazine Life (Life quoted in Marling 1994: 129, 130) analysing the new suburban families and their “fantastic and insolent chariots” (Mumford quoted in Keats 1958: 212, also see Marling 1994: 302), such as the Ford, the Buick, the Chrysler and the Cadillac (Marling 1994: 132-134).

In addition, the new medium of the decade, television, substantially transformed American culture. Soon millions of American families became passive observers at home as they “spent many of their leisure hours lazily slumped in front of the television set”, something which critics had already predicted earlier (Oakley 1990: 250). Television had a major impact on Americans in that it introduced a completely new kind of popular culture: for the first time it enabled the average family to enjoy sports, fashion, movies, etc. at home (Marling 1994: 6, Oakley 1990: 250.

However, the main reason for America’s suburban phenomenon was a focus on family values after the war. Having experienced the loss of numerous lives during World War II, Americans cherished a family and a home where new life came into being more and more. After the war and in the middle of the anxious atmosphere caused by the Cold War a peaceful home that suggested a feeling of togetherness seemed to be the only security left for many American citizens. Nevertheless, an interest in getting married and having babies as an expression of a life-affirming attitude was not the only reason for the post-war focus on the family and the home. Interestingly, the nuclear family, a concept so typical of the 1950s, was closely linked with a lifestyle of consumerism, as will be revealed in the following. (Ellwood: 1997: 24, 25).

…

Footnotes and works cited were omitted on purpose. If you’re interested in reading the thesis as a whole, let me know via email.

copyright startwritingcreatively press, jens kuestner November 2010.

Drawing on both a Hemingwayesque mode of writing and meticulous observations of daily (Indian) life, the Londoner succeeds in combining classic techniques of writing with touching perceptions of “the alienated foreigner”. At times, Martin’s convincing poetic and magical mode of writing is almost reminiscent of Joseph Conrad’s “Heart of Darkness”.

I strongly recommend you to read “Enlightened Fog”, a short story that is as captivating, compulsive and contemporary as you could wish for.

Enlightened Fog

by Alex Martin

We embarked from the small bus stop to be greeted by little more than a row of tuk-tuk drivers sleeping in their cars. The town showed no signs of activity and we got into a tuk-tuk and drove into the surrounding green of the hills. The journey seemed eerily timeless as we drove past decayed walls and bridges. We drove by dusty schoolchildren playing on the roadside ambling towards their morning classes.

The scene was so foreign and alien to what we had seen before and it seemed so static. This same picture would no doubt have been seen two hundred years before and showed little signs of any challenge to it coming from the near future.  The day was rising from a heavy rainfall the day before and the horizon was a deep and lush green.  After twisting and turning along a minor road until the dim city presence was submerged into a light fog, the vehicle slowed to a stand-still. The road finished here and we were to walk the rest of the distance.

As we crunched our way up the pebbly road a grand yet decayed miniature palace emerged. It was a place so beautiful and recallable to my future imagination but a place of little significance to anyone else. It rose over a shimmering lake reflecting the hills of the distance. The place had five or six plastic tables on the veranda and casually served food and drinks. I ordered and waited with excitement, not for the meal but in lieu of my surroundings. The place seemed so placid. Monkeys would jump from the roof occasionally to grab food from a left table only to be beaten back by a waiter’s broom. I couldn’t help feeling deeply pensive about everything so far in the day.

A few days before and I had been back in England unchallenged by the unfamiliar, even the arrival in Delhi offered similarities – the cars, huge apartment buildings being erected, the international advertising billboards. India was a place that was on the up. I remember walking down a road of shopping malls which, but for its vastness, offered no difference to home but for the sand instead of tarmac. We stayed here for around an hour but I was not aware of time passing as one normally is. What struck me was the quiet and archaic beauty of the place. It was unaware of it. It was here in the Eastern Rajasthani hills that I was confronted with my inevitable Indian ‘culture shock’. It all seemed so perfect- still and tranquil and to my inquisitive eyes remarkably unaware of any novelty. To them the shooing of monkeys every so often was a necessary burden on their time – there was no doubt that they were pests. Yet it seemed to me so strange. Of course it was not strange to them; it was my un-acclimatized eyes that saw it this way.

I enjoyed everything about my time in India but my fondest memories are those of an awareness of difference. By the time I came home much that would have fascinated me on arrival was overlooked by my increasingly adjusted self. I wrote in my diary the evening I arrived at the school of the poverty and desperation of the nearby villages. I remarked on the tarpaulin covered roofs on the sides of the streets and wrote about their poverty and assumed suffering. When driving back towards Delhi passing those same villages for the final time I had realised that these were not unusual or even signs of poverty but commonplace. The villages were not poor just away from the influences of a modernizing and Western style India.

I remember a feeling of being enlightened to something new and different. We went into the forests below and found an ornate temple hidden to the world behind the canopies of overhanging trees.  I understood nothing of what was being said but left with a clay-red “tilak” on my forehead and a string bracelet on my wrist. I think one of the main things that made me think was the difference between this reality and my assumptions about India. I expected oppressive heat yet basked in the cool of the late winter. I was prepared for thriving commotion but sat in an openness challenged only by the light fog.

copyright alex martin, 2009.

Do you recall that night when I did not see any Buffalo? I could not find any, I did not hunt. That’s my sore point, I thought that day. But You held me tight and told me to keep Watching.

Makes Eagle Feathers Dance, I cherish you. Makes Eagle Feathers Dance, I need you.

I take out my ceremonial pipe and light it up. The smoke rises and it reminds me of your Hair. I can see my vision. I can see clearly Now. It is right in front of me.

Makes Eagle Feathers Dance, I cherish you. Makes Eagle Feathers Dance, I need you.

I can see the buffalo now! They are right in Front of me.

Makes Eagle Feathers Dance, I love you.

I read lots of stories about Indian warriors and noble Indian Chiefs. I loved westerns about cowboys fighting the Indians. Back then, I did not realise how distorted those images actually are. After all, we are  dealing with Native American tribes, human beings that were savagely slaughtered by Euro-American invaders who called themselves “settlers”.

If one bears in mind the atrocities committed to Native Americans during the Western expansion, it is quite shocking that in addition to that, they have consistently been portrayed as dim-witted and drunk sidekicks. Images of bloodthirsty warriors who are doomed to die and to be conquered are still quite common in Hollywood movies. Mel Gibson’s “Apocalypto” (2006) about the Maya, a result of appalingly poor research, is but one of many examples of misrepresentation of Native American tribes in US film.

Ever since I discovered the works of Spokane/Coeur d’Alene writer Sherman Alexie I’ve been keen on his writings, especially his short story collection The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven.

One of the most interesting voices of Contemporary Native American Literature, Sherman Alexie subverts classic cowboys and Indian warriors and offers new Native American identities. He focuses on Native American characters that are entrapped in a contemporary reservation environment. They are torn between the acceptance of established “Indian” stereotypes and the search for authentic Native American identities, identities that are so unlike “Indian” images present in our minds.

I strongly recommend you to read Sherman Alexie. He is an excellent writer in that he succeeds in making you both laugh about and think about a very serious issue: How can Native Americans be regarded as authentic individuals when they are dominated by an ethno-centric culture that distorts Native America and its people? You’ll get to know “real Indians” for a change,  authentic contemporary Native American characters that struggle in an environment dominated by violence and drug abuse.

If you’re interested in the short stories of Alexie try to read some short stories from The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven and feel free to take a look at my essay. Also take a look at Sherman Alexie’s webpage, it’s great. I have also provided a link to the title story “The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven”. Enjoy!

http://www.fallsapart.com/loneranger.html

http://www.amazon.de/Lone-Ranger-Tonto-Fistfight-Heaven/dp/0802141676

Rewriting Native American Identities.

Sherman Alexie’s Contemporary “Indians” in The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven.

by Jens Kuestner

Contents

1. Introduction

2. Various Misrepresentations of Natives Americans in

American Literature, Film and Television

3. Alexie’s Ambivalent Deconstruction of the Stereotypical Indian

3.1 Indian Warriors and Visionaries

3.2 A War Within –

Searching for Native American Identities on a Spokane Reservation

3.3 “The Cowboy versus Indian Business”

4. Conclusion

Bibliography

1. Introduction

Probably one of the most important and controversial voices of Contemporary Native American Literature, Spokane/Coeur d’Alene author Sherman Alexie again and again provokes readers with his ambivalent depictions of Native Americans. The author, poet, and screenwriter is best known for his inconsistent portrayal of “Indians”[1] ranging from deliberately stereotypical archetypes to authentic individuals.

The following essay will deal with Alexie’s ambivalence in depicting Native Americans as a hybrid people torn between the want for authenticity and the acceptance of long established stereotypes. After an introduction to misrepresentations of Native Americans in American literature, film and television, Alexie’s deconstruction of the stereotypical Indian as well as the author’s ambiguous portrayal of the fate of his Native American characters will be discussed in detail.

Major emphasis is set upon Alexie’s tendency to portray contemporary Native Americans who face a loss of identity. Neither are they able to accept their traditional Native identity, nor can they adapt themselves to a white-dominated culture that still portrays them as romanticised victims of American colonisation. Alexie’s intent to rewrite dominant American history in order to offer alternative Native American identities is a central approach of the author and thus will be substantially analysed.

Two of Alexie’s short stories from his work The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven will be considered, namely “A Drug Called Tradition” and “Every Little Hurricane” (Alexie 1994: 1-11, 12-23). Whereas the former will be discussed with regard to stereotyping of Native Americans and their struggle against ever-present myths of Indian visionaries and warriors, the latter will be considered since it offers a surprisingly ambivalent picture of a fictitious Spokane reservation, crucial to the work of Sherman Alexie.

The essay is meant to decipher the author’s complex switch from references to established Indian archetypes to depictions of authentic everyday lives on the reservation. It aims at pointing to the fact that Alexie is often hard to grasp: he provides his readers with expected stereotypes which then are condemned and deconstructed. While providing humorous comments to misrepresentations of Native Americans, Alexie never ceases to attack Euro-American distorted notions of the Indian still present in day-to-day American culture.

2. Various Misrepresentations of Natives Americans in American Literature, Film and Television

Part of Sherman Alexie’s rebellion against American ethno-centricity is his criticism of misrepresentations of Native American culture in American literature, film and television. The author attacks, as he puts it, “the corn-pollen, four directions, eagle-feathered school of Native literature” (Alexie in Chapel 2000), that is, a stylised depiction of Native Americans, which “has nothing to do with the day-to-day lives of Indians” (Alexie in Fraser 2001). Alexie demands representations that give justice to the cultural variety and complexity of Native tribes and, more importantly, focus on the daily lives of Native Americans in a contemporary reservation environment (Grassian 2005: 8).

As a matter of fact, stereotyping of “Indians” was predominant in nineteenth-century American literature, beginning with colonial accounts by Mary Rowlandson, who depicts Native Americans as uncivilised savages and “bloody heathen” (Rowlandson 2003: 136). European settlers regarded these unknown beings as the epitome of the “alien” and created myths that usually portray Native Americans as wild and hostile creatures. Additionally, authors such as Nathaniel Hawthorne and Mark Twain kept nurturing the image of savage Indians as representatives of uncivilised cultural phenomena. To mention one example of stereotyping, in The Scarlet Letter Hawthorne portrays Native Americans as “wild” and “painted barbarians” in 17^th century Puritan Boston (Hawthorne 1998: 232):

A party of Indians – in their savage finery of curiously embroidered deer-skin robes, […] and armed with the bow and arrow and stone-headed spear – stood apart, with countenances of inflexible gravity, beyond what even the Puritan aspect could attain (232).

In James Fenimore Cooper’s Leather-stocking Tales, Native Americans are substantially romanticised. Cooper’s Chingachgook, an icon of the “noble savage” remains a representative of an alienated and fictitious world; a far cry from an authentic portrayal of Native American culture (Grassian 2005: 10, Cox 1997: 54)[2].

With the Native American Renaissance in late 1960s and the publication of Momaday’s House Made of Dawn, first published in 1968, a significant shift towards authentic Native American literature can be observed (Momaday 1999). Native American authors started to produce genuine Native American literature, often featuring modern and authentic Native Americans who so far had been portrayed as mere traditional archetypes by Euro-American authors (Grassian 2005: 10, Wilson 2001: 1). Acclaimed Native American authors, such as James Welch, Louise Erdrich and Leslie Marmon Silko, are crucial voices of Native American Literature in that they started to counteract stereotypes of Native Americans and provided a new focus on an authentic representation of contemporary Indian life and identity (Grassian 2005: 10):

These authors and their characters are involved in a narrative construction or reconstruction of a Native American-identified self that counters a racist historical context and the conquest narratives that are often sustained by the ubiquitous white man’s Indian. [They] radically revise and subvert […] the mass-produced misrepresentations of Native Americans (Cox 1997: 52).

Indebted to these authors[3], Sherman Alexie is part of a new generation of Native American writers, writers who combine references to established stereotypes and archaic representation with a realistic approach to the portrayal of Native American contemporary life. Alexie fuses his rage over the loss of authentic traditionalism and deliberate misrepresentations of Native Americans, still present in American history books and novels, with his wish to point to the grim reality of contemporary life on Native American reservations (Hafen 1997: 71, Purdy 1997: 8 )[4].

Also, the author is concerned with the need “to write about Indians in a predominantly televisual country that distorts and complicates the importance and nature of ethnicity itself” (Grassian 2005: inside front cover). Apart from misrepresentations in literature, Alexie counteracts stereotyping of Native Americans in Hollywood movies and television. As a matter of fact, ever since the emergence of the Western, common stereotypes of Indian killers, noble savages and drunken sidekicks have been nurtured in American film (Cox 1997: 53).

Most of the 1930/40 Hollywood westerns portray white cowboys as heroes and often deny the “European/Euro-American criminality” that was committed against Native American tribes (Churchill 1992: 240). For instance, in John Ford’s classic western Stagecoach, starring John Wayne, Native Americans are only featured to serve as obstacles that have to be overcome by white settlers who are portrayed as justified conquerors (Ford 1939). Worse still, in most westerns that were made until the late 1950s, Native Americans, who were often played by “Indian-looking” American actors, are depicted as minor characters eager to kill and doomed to die in the end (Cox 1997: 53).[5] Although the more recent epic Dances With Wolves by Kevin Costner predominantly stars Native American actors and gives substantial insight into Lakota culture, the story is still told from an American perspective (Costner 1990). Despite its remarkably authentic portrayal of Native American culture, the movie tends to romanticise and mystify Native American culture (Cox 1997: 53).

In addition, Sherman Alexie questions the depiction of sidekick Tonto in the television programme The Lone Ranger (Seitz Jr., Archainbaud et al., 1949-1957). The author’s title, The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven, is a mocking response to the aforementioned series and suggests that Tonto refuses to be a devoted sidekick in The Lone Ranger:

In Alexie’s eight word revision, Tonto refuses to be the loyal companion, a twentieth-century incarnation of the noble savage, literally a white man’s [...] Indian. Tonto engages the Lone Ranger in fistfight, and thereby refuses to occupy the subordinate social space defined and assigned to him by the Lone Ranger, the iconographic Western hero and the representative of the dominant culture (Cox 1997: 55).

Alexie’s choice of title subverts the title of the television series. The author’s title can be regarded as a guide to his short stories: it is an ironic response to a dominant white televisual culture that substantially influences his Native American characters. They “are engaged in the same metaphorical fistfight as the titular Tonto”, since they have to live with misrepresentations of their culture, nurtured by Euro-American narratives that portray “Native Americans as a conquered people, as decontextualized, romanticized, subservient Tontos and Native America as a conquered landscape” (Cox 1997: 55, 56).

Sherman Alexie is part of a contemporary generation of Native American writers who deliberately question a stereotypical and decontextualised portrayal of Native Americans in literature, film and television. A writer with an immense historical awareness, he is conscious of established Native American clichés and stereotypes and uses them himself in order to deconstruct Euro-American images of the Indian, as will be discussed in the following analysis (Grimm 2009: 338).

3. Alexie’s Ambivalent Deconstruction of the Stereotypical Indian

Alexie’s response to stereotyping of Native Americans is expressed through his stock characters Thomas Builds-the-Fire, Victor Joseph, and Junior Polatkin. Featured in his novel Reservation Blues (Alexie 1995) and in most of the short stories in The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven, the characters represent Native Americans searching for their identities in a reservation environment. With each character, Alexie offers a different approach to the struggle for a generically Native American identity. Thomas, Victor and Junior face versions of Native American identities that have been distorted by historical change and Indian clichés. Alexie’s deliberate deconstruction of his characters allows the reader to get an insight into his complex concepts of ambiguous Native American identities.

3.1 Indian Warriors and Visionaries

In “A Drug Called Tradition”, Alexie establishes his characters as authentic Native Americans shaped by American pop culture and consumerism (Cox 1997: 61, Schröder 2003: 111). The three ‘rez kids’ Thomas, Victor and Junior use American jargon, drink Diet Pepsi and drive a Camaro (Alexie 1994: 12, 13, 20). Alexie takes great pains to portray “real contemporary people who are no historical artefacts […]” (Hafen 1997: 78). The creation of a contemporary Native American culture on a Spokane Reservation is the author’s first step towards a Native American identity that is not defined by archetypal Indian savagery and mysticism (Schröder 2003: 113).

However, Alexie does make use of a number of references to well-known stereotypes. He ridicules stock elements of stereotypical narratives about Indians: Victor, Thomas and Junior usually park their car in front of  the Trading Post “to look like horsepowered warriors” and only want to take along full-blood “Indian princesses” (Alexie 1994: 13). Alexie picks up the long-established stereotypical world of the Indian warrior who has to earn his name, as Victor in Thomas’ first vision (15). The ever-present image of an Indian warrior riding across the Great Plains and ready to steal a horse has become an archetype and is ironically used by Alexie[6]:

I am riding that pony across the open plain, in moonlight that makes everything a shadow. What’s your name? I ask the horse, and he rears back on his hind legs. He pulls air deep into his lungs and rises above the ground. Flight, he tells me, my name is Flight (Alexie 1994: 15, 16).

Instead of avoiding stereotypical Indian images, Alexie ironically makes use of stereotypes depicting Native Americans as nature-loving warriors who can tame and communicate with horses. Victor faces a vision that places him into a traditional context unknown to him; a contemporary ‘rez kid’ enters the world of one-dimensional Indian stock characters. Alexie, I argue here, deliberately deconstructs Victor’s identity to reveal distorted and mystified notions about Native Americans (Grimm 2009: 309, 312, Schröder 2003: 93, Grassian 2005: 60).

Alexie’s characters face a loss of identity in that they are neither perceived as contemporary Americans nor do they lead a traditional Native American life. As a matter of fact, they are historically alienated from Native American traditions. “What kind of “Indians” they will be is the question they must answer” (Richardson 1997: 40). Victor and Junior seem to be trying to live up to their reputation as “brave warrior[s]” in order to get closer to their origin, yet by doing so they affirm the stereotypes they are associated with (Schröder 2003: 119, Grimm 2009: 318). Alexie reveals fixed notions of “indianess”, nurtured by American pop culture, that complicate Victor’s and Junior’s search for an authentic Native American identity (Schröder 2003: 95):

Alienated from their American Indian culture as well as from America, the characters […] want to believe in the wisdom of old Indian prophets, want to return to the ‘old ways’, but know that doing so will just trap them inside another clichéd Hollywood narrative (Gillan 1996: 91).

“I have yet to know of [any Indian] who has stood on a mountain waiting for a sign”, Alexie told Indian Artist, and thus questions another prominent stereotype, namely the image of Indians as spiritual visionaries (Alexie in Lincoln 2000). Interestingly enough, his characters’ visions are depicted in a rather ambivalent way. On the one hand, the fact that Victor, Junior and Thomas immediately have visions after taking the drug could be regarded as a humorous comment on established stereotypes in Hollywood movies. Thomas’ vision of Victor stealing a horse could be considered the author’s mocking response to images of Indian warriors and Indian shamans who are supposed to have stereotypical visions, as “all Indians on television had visions that told them exactly what to do” (Alexie 1995: 18).

However, on the other hand, Thomas, an “Indian geek”, is very unlike the stereotypical Indian shaman. Especially his last vision, I argue, is to be taken seriously and for once cannot be interpreted as ironic (Grimm 2009: 319). As an embodiment of the Native American storyteller and a voice of cultural memory, Thomas Builds-the-Fire is too important to be considered a comic version of the Indian shaman. In contrast to Victor and Junior who seem to embrace the Indian stereotypes they are associated with, Thomas is the most authentic character who provides an alternative outlook that is very unlike Junior’s and Victor’s need for male role models in a stereotypical Indian world (Cox 1997: 64):

The boys sit by the fire and breathe, their visions arrive. They are all carried away to the past, to the moment before any of them took their first drink of alcohol. The boy Thomas throws the beer he is offered into the garbage. The boy Junior throws his whiskey through a window. The boy victor spills his vodka down the drain. Then the boys sing. They sing and dance and drum. They steal horses.

[…]

“You don’t really believe that shit?” I asked Thomas (Alexie 1994: 21).

Thomas’ last vision is not so much a humorous subversion of the Indian visionary but rather presents the character’s healing vision of his friends. Thomas wants them to be cured from their addiction to alcohol and their embrace of misguiding and artificial Indian masculine images. Whereas Victor and Junior try to forget about their loss of identity, Thomas is eager to recall their struggle for a genuine Native American identity that opposes popular Indian images:

Er erzählt gegen das Vergessen und Verleugnen und versucht, seine Sicht der Dinge den „Wahrheiten” aus dem Fernsehen, aus Filmen, Comicbüchern und Jukeboxen entgegen zu stellen (Schröder 2003: 109, 110).

Thus, Alexie confronts the reader with an ambivalent approach to stereotypical depictions of Native Americans. The author uses established Indian images to turn them upside down and to question the identity of his characters that are torn between American pop culture and Native American myths. With Thomas, a voice of Native American memory, Alexie creates a character that, through his storytelling and visions, provides alternative views to racist stereotypes and the grim reality of life on the reservation, as will be revealed in the following chapter.

3.2 A War Within –

Searching for Native American Identities on a Spokane Reservation

In his short story collection The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven Sherman Alexie creates a world of contemporary Native Americans who live on a Spokane reservation. The world of Victor, Junior and Thomas is substantially influenced and shaped by American pop culture. Their lives clearly focus on entertainment and consumption. “The second-largest party in reservation history”, described at the beginning of “A Drug Called Tradition”, is not very unlike the average American college party (Alexie 1994: 12). The fact that the characters indulge in driving cars, taking drugs and having parties clearly suggests their embrace of American culture.

Although part of the Spokane tribe, the characters are more influenced by contemporary American culture than by the culture of their origin. The only character who is desperately trying to value Native American traditions is Thomas Builds-the-Fire. He decries the fact that their cultural traditions have been long replaced by American consumerism (Grassian 2005: 59). The loss of Native American values is most evident when Thomas is ostracised by Victor and Junior for telling “his goddamn stories” (Alexie 1994: 14) since in traditional Native American societies the storyteller was exceedingly appreciated (Grassian 2005: 62). It seems paradoxical that Thomas, in a way a contemporary Native American shaman, is mocked at by people of his own tribe, people who are not willing to be “real Indians” (Alexie 1994: 20) but who cling to stereotypical Indian role models instead. (Schröder 2003: 126).

If one bears in mind the title of the short story, one could argue that Thomas is an important mediator in that he reminds Victor and Junior of their tradition, a drug they cannot escape from (Grassian 2005: 59)[7]. The storyteller questions Victor’s and Junior’s indifferent attitude towards their tradition and their escapism from their personal past: “I couldn’t really understand what [Thomas] was saying, but Junior swore he told us not to slow dance with our skeletons” (Alexie 1994: 21). The skeleton, in part a metaphor for a past that haunts the three characters with “memories, dreams, and voices”, is Alexie’s image for a Spokane reservation where Native Americans are both trapped in their past and present and ensnared in between cultures (21).

Influenced by the loss of Native American tradition and a dominant American culture that offers excess and drug abuse, Alexie’s characters try hard to find their true selves in a reservation environment. Torn between two cultures they are both alienated from, they are representatives of a hybrid society that makes them question their identity (Schröder 2003: 120, 121). Alexie’s fictitious reservation can be regarded as a “contact zone”, that is, a place of cultural transition complicating the characters’ decision for one culture or the other in order to find a true identity:

Als contact zone ist das Reservat ein (konstruierter) Übergangsraum zwischen zwei Kulturräumen, ein Grenzraum zwischen „anglo-amerikanischem“ und „indianischem“ Kulturraum, wobei weder der „anglo-amerikanische“ noch der „indianische“ Raum so homogen sind, wie es die Begrifflichkeit vermuten lässt (Schröder 2003: 97).

However, not only trapped by a reservation environment, Alexie’s characters are also limited by their own perceptions. Alexie is ambivalent in that he does not simply blame America and its dominant culture for a loss of Native American identities, but also points out how a loss of identity can be caused by a “self-defeating ideology” (Grassian 2005: 57, Schröder 2003: 95, 97).

In “Every Little Hurricane” Alexie portrays Native Americans who are themselves to blame for their addiction to alcohol and violence. The titular hurricane serves as a metaphor for the recurrent self-destructive violence that takes place on the Spokane Reservation. Alexie describes two Native Americans, Adolph and Arnold, engaging in an aggressive fistfight and thus depicts the brutality within Native American society: “[Victor] could see his uncles slugging each other with such force they could be in love. Strangers would never want to hurt each other that badly” (Alexie 1994: 2).  Interestingly enough, rather than portraying Native Americans as victims of white dominance, the author exposes them as victims of their own tribe. By focusing on conflicts between Native Americans, Alexie reveals that violence on the reservation “is not purely an aftereffect of interactions with whites” but a product of the reservation where Native Americans threaten each other (Grassian 2005: 72):

“They’re going to kill each other,” somebody yelled from an upstairs window. Nobody disagreed and nobody moved to change the situation. Witnesses. They were all witnesses and nothing more. For hundreds of years, Indians were witnesses to crimes of an epic scale. Victor’s uncles were in the midst of a misdemeanour that would remain one even if somebody was to die. One Indian killing another did not create a special kind of storm (Alexie 1994: 3).

Although hinting to Euro-American crimes committed against Native Americans, Alexie focuses on violence on the reservation itself and thus reveals how the historical fight between Native American tribes and white settlers has been replaced by another one. “Forget about the cowboy versus Indian business. The most intense competition on any reservation is Indians versus Indians”, Alexie explains in the title story “The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven” (Alexie 1994: 188). The author subverts the antagonistic struggle between whites and Indians that has become a cliché. In “Every Little Hurricane”, however, Native Americans engage in a fight against each other. One could argue that Alexie criticises Native Americans as passive witnesses. The fight between Victor’s uncles is only met by the passivity of the other tribe members who stoically accept violence as “a by-product of the reservation” (Grassian 2005: 72).

It is worth noting that Alexie remains ambivalent about the depiction of Native American violence. On the one hand, he depicts Victor’s uncles as a danger to each other (57, 58), however, Alexie never ceases to refer to American racism towards Native Americans: Victor’s father remembers when he and his father were spat on by whites; Victor’s mother was forcefully sterilized by the Indian Health Service (Alexie 1994: 8). Although in “Every Little Hurricane” there is a clear focus on violent behaviour on the reservation, one could argue that Alexie still blames racist Euro-American behaviour for destructive tendencies among Native Americans: “Here is where Alexie reveals how external, often racist acts and attitudes of Non-Natives can produce internal, bottled-up rage that can lead to violence” (Grassian 2005: 58).

Similar to his ambivalent question of who to blame for Native American violence, Alexie adopts an ambiguous approach to depicting the reservation itself. In “Every Little Hurricane” Alexie substantially establishes the reservation as an environment shaped by alcoholism and depression:

Victor climbed on the bed and lay down between [his parents]. His mother and father breathed deep, nearly chocking alcoholic snores. They were sweating although the room was cold, and Victor thought the alcohol seeping through their skin might get him drunk, might help him to sleep. He kissed his mother’s neck, tasted the salt and whiskey. He kissed his father’s forearm, tasted the cheap beer and smoke (Alexie 1994: 9).

Comparable to Victor’s and Junior’s escape into a stereotypical Indian world, the alcoholism of Victor’s parents is their desperate attempt to cope with the hopelessness they encounter on the reservation, a world dominated by addiction and violence.

By telling Native American stories that predominantly focus on painful and life-threatening experiences, Alexie attempts to convey the grim reality of life on the Spokane reservation (Hafen 1997: 71): Victor’s uncles almost kill each other in a fistfight, his aunt Nezzy is pushed down the stairs by a member of her own tribe, and Victor recalls an old Native who passed out and drowned in a mud puddle (Alexie 1994: 3, 7, 10). Alexie’s depiction of the reservation seems to be significantly real; he substantially focuses on Native American suffering.[8] However, in both “Every Little Hurricane” and “A Drug Called Tradition” Alexie insists on the survival of his characters. Although they are left in a desperate environment, Alexie regards Native Americans as “the eternal survivors” (Alexie 1994: 11).

Even though there seems to be enough potential in his characters “to destroy the reservation and leave only random debris and broken furniture”, (11) Alexie is inconsistent in that he provides alternatives to the hopelessness on the reservation (McFarland 1997: 37). In “Every Little Hurricane” Victor’s uncles give up the fight and forgive each other. Instead of fighting each other they recall and share experiences as poor children on the reservation. In contrast to descriptions of misery on the reservation, for once Alexie emphasises a strong bond between Native Americans who share their suffering on the reservation: “When children grow up together in poverty, a bond is formed that is stronger than most anything. It’s the same bond that causes so much pain” (Alexie 1994: 8).

Similar to a Native American bond that causes both hope and pain, Alexie offers an ambivalent image of the reservation: his Spokane reservation can be considered both a resort and a prison. His Native Americans find themselves torn between concepts of home, family bonds, tradition, and the cruel reality of a restricted life on the reservation:

Die Rolle des Reservats ist paradox: zum einen fungiert es als Zufluchtsort, „Schutz“ indianischer Nationen und ihrer Kulturen, zum anderen ist es die Zone, in die Indianer im Laufe der Eroberung Amerikas abgedrängt wurden, ein Ort der die Rolle eines Gefängnisses suggeriert (Schröder 2003: 98).

Analogous to “A Drug Called Tradition”, where Victor and Junior are given an alternative to their cynicism by being reminded of their tradition by Big Mom (Alexie 1994: 23), in “Every Little Hurricane” Alexie portrays a reservation that functions both as a safety net and a restraining environment (Schröder 2003: 96). While Victor and his family undergo heavy crises and face a life dominated by violence, drug abuse and poverty, they end up as survivors who somehow are capable of dealing with their metaphorical hurricanes. It is unnecessary to argue whether Alexie draws a positive or negative image of the reservation. His depiction of the Spokane Reservation ranges from the painful reality of poverty to opportunities for a better future. In “Every Little Hurricane” the reservation is portrayed as an ambiguous setting,  a place that is not solely good or bad (99).

As analysed above, Alexie offers various readings to the reservation, an ambivalent home to Native Americans. In addition to Alexie’s image of the reservation, an environment that economically and culturally restricts its characters (Grassian 2005: 6), the author clearly suggests that the Spokane Reservation is shaped by its characters who deny their own selves. In “Every Little Hurricane” Alexie substantially focuses on a struggle between Native Americans, a war that seems to originate from within. He offers clear criticism of Native Americans who are themselves responsible for their loss of identity. However, he never ceases to attribute collective historical guilt to a white-dominated society that tries to keep Native American characters out of official American history, as will be discussed in the following.

3.3 “The Cowboys versus Indians business”[9]

Crucial in most of his short stories, a major aim of Sherman Alexie is to “rewrite dominant American history, which barely acknowledges the violent colonization and subsequent massacres by European settlers” (Grassian 2005: 8). A writer with significant “historical sensibilities”, he deliberately hints at various atrocities committed to Native Americans during the European settlement of the American continent (Hafen 1997: 71). Interestingly enough, however, Alexie consistently draws upon a fusion of historical references and satire. By paradoxically adding humour to his rage, expressed through his biting historical comments, Alexie consciously ridicules “commonly accepted history” and denies its credibility.

Junior’s vision of Thomas in “A Drug Called Tradition” illustrates Alexie’s intent to subvert historical accounts of the American settlement. Thomas faces the extinction of his tribe, which has been infected by smallpox, transmitted by white settlers who provided the tribe with contaminated blankets. Alexie’s hint to the European transmission of smallpox to the Native American people, which caused the extinction of most tribes, is most evident and defines the settlers as guilty offenders. However, Thomas’ agony turns into a spiritual dance that causes tribal healing rather than extinction:

My blisters heal, my muscles stretch, expand. My tribe dances behind me. At first they are no bigger than children. Then they begin to grow, larger than me, larger than the trees around us. The buffalo come to join us and their hooves shake the earth, knock all the white people from their beds, send their plates crashing to the floor. We dance in circles growing larger and larger until we are standing on the shore, watching all the ships returning to Europe (Alexie 1994: 17).

Alexie humorously turns history around: rather than dying from smallpox, Thomas and his tribe are healed by the magical powers of a spiritual dance. Paradoxically, instead of being slaughtered by white hunters, a herd of buffalo seems to invade and threaten the American settlement. Most importantly, the vision ends with the deliverance of the tribe. It is not conquered but set free instead. Alexie subverts historical facts and turns offenders into victims: in Junior’s vision the white settlers are perceived as victims of Native American dominance rather than heroic conquerors. “Rebelling against the “official story” ” (Richardson 1997: 41), Alexie feels the need to expose heroic accounts of the European colonisation, which usually focus on white settlers as justified conquerors:

[Alexie] suggests that imagining alternatives to the dominant culture’s narratives of conquest (Columbus’ voyage; the Manifest Destiny conferred by the Christian God on Europe’s children) is a powerful weapon. Imagining alternative histories might not change the present […], but conceiving of other possibilities, revisioning a history in which Native Americans write Native Americans back into the landscape, will influence the future (Cox 1997: 58).

Apart from Thomas’ tribe, which is not pushed back but actively returns into the environment it belongs to, there are other examples of Alexie’s humorous approach to turn active offenders into passive victims and vice versa: In “Imagining the Reservation” the famous Lakota warrior is credited the inventor of the atom bomb, Jesus Christ becomes a Native American and Columbus does not discover the American continent but is hypothetically drowned by a Native American tribe (Alexie 1994: 149, 150).

In addition, Alexie revises white-dominated history by upsetting notions of the “quintessential American icon of the heroic cowboy” (Grassian 2005: 48). “Forget about the cowboys versus Indians business” demands the narrator of the short story “The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven”, and thus epitomises Alexie’s purpose: he consistently tries to move away from stereotypical depictions of Indians and the Western hero (Alexie 1994: 188, also cf. Chapter 3.2).

Whereas stereotypical notions rely on an antagonistic relationship between cowboys and Indians, Alexie artfully blurs the boundary in that he relates characteristics typical of cowboys to his Native American characters: “Instantly I saw and heard Junior singing. He stood on a stage in a ribbon shirt and blue jeans. Singing. With a guitar” (Alexie 1994: 18). By placing a Native American character into a generically American setting, namely the singing cowboy on stage, Alexie destroys both the image of the romanticised Western hero and the stereotypical Indian. “[Alexie] alerts the reader to the absurdity of white appropriation of Indian identity by reconstructing the dominant culture’s ideal white people […] into Indians” (Cox 1997: 65).

In Alexie’s fictitious Native American world Edgar Crazy Horse, great-grandson of Lakota Chief Crazy Horse, is the President of the United States. Country songs do not deal with cowboys but with imaginary Native American victories over “the whites” (Alexie 1994: 18). It is in such a “visionary state” where Alexie also turns around notions of racism (McFarland 1997: 36):

Indians make the best cowboys. I can tell you that. I’ve been singing at the Plantation since I was ten years old and have always drawn big crowds. All the white folks come to hear my songs, my little pieces of Indian wisdom, although they have to sit in the back of the theater because all the Indians get the best tickets for my shows. It’s not racism. The Indians just camp out all night to buy tickets (Alexie 1994: 18).

In Victor’s vision Alexie establishes a racist environment. The Native American concert takes place at “the Plantation”, a clear reference to American slavery, prominent on the antebellum plantations in the South. The fact that “the white folks” have to sit in the back of the theatre further supports Alexie’s reference to white racism towards Afro-Americans.

Interestingly enough, Alexie again turns offenders into victims: whites are turned into ostracised outcasts. Native Americans become racists. Junior’s denial of racist behaviour in Victor’s vision is a case in point for Alexie’s technique of historical reconstruction. Junior’s mere excuse, namely that their white guests cannot sit in the front because “the Indians just camp out all night to buy tickets”, is reminiscent of simplistic Euro-American racist explanations, which Alexie hints at by the afore-mentioned references (Alexie 1994: 18). White racist behaviour is appropriated to Native Americans, the actual victims of American racism, in order to expose its absurdity or, as Cox puts it, to “[revise] the narratives from the perspective of the invaded. [C]ultural conflict becomes a battle of stories, or more precisely, a battle between storytellers” (Cox 1997: 66).

By turning contemporary Native American characters into historic conquerors, Alexie forces them into a role they are not associated with in the “official” version of American history and thus questions its credibility as a liable historical source (Schröder 2003: 108):

[D]ie Verbindung von Geschichte und (Roman-) Gegenwart [ist] der Versuch, offizielle Geschichtsschreibung zu hinterfragen und sie umzuschreiben oder doch wenigstens durch Alternativentwürfe zu ergänzen (Schröder 2003: 106).

A form of the so-called magic realism[10], the approach to combine imaginary history with a realistic depiction of contemporary Native Americans is substantially used in “A Drug Called Tradition”. As Schröder explains, Alexie uses this technique to blur the borders between reality and a potential depiction of reality, namely history.

Offering absurd and distorted versions of American history, Sherman Alexie suggests that history can be inappropriately glorified and corrupted (Schröder 2003: 108). Alexie provides alternatives to one-sided and corrupted historical versions of the American settlement: “[Die] Erinnerungen, Träume und Visionen der Romanfiguren […] sind ein weiteres Gegengewicht zu einer „westlich-rationalen“ Sicht der Vergangenheit“ (108).

By means of historical alteration, Alexie gives his Native American characters a potential voice of historical truth. Junior’s song praises Crazy Horse as a victorious warrior “who helped [the Native American people] win the war against the whites” (Alexie 1994: 18). Interestingly enough, the Lakota warrior is not only perceived as the leader of the Lakota tribe but becomes the hero of all Native American tribes: he seems to have helped all Native American tribes to a victory over white dominance. Alexie creates deformed historical alternatives that turn historical facts upside down. Neither was Crazy Horse able to prevent the white settlers from invading Native American land, nor did he serve as a leader of all Native American tribes. Nevertheless, Alexie disregards historical accuracy, simply to reveal the weakness of dominant American history that is supposed to offer historical truth but still depicts Native American culture solely as a history of a conquered people (Cox 1997: 66).

In an environment of distorted Indian figures and deconstructed versions of cowboys Alexie’s characters confront the reader with stereotypical notions of Native Americans and Western conquerors. Victor, Junior and Thomas expose the clichéd war between savage Indian killers and unconquerable cowboys, who, in Alexie’s opinion, are “not worthy of admiration, let alone deification” (Grassian 2005: 48). Again, it is worth noting that Alexie uses stereotypical images himself and destabilises them. He draws on established history that has been told so many times it has become “one-dimensional, static, and vulnerable to parodic revision” (Cox 1997: 66). Alexie exploits the weakness of stereotypical thought to deconstruct its essence.

By offering fake historical accounts, which one could regard as versions of ‘pseudo-history’, Sherman Alexie does not only question historical accounts that diminish Native American history as a formulaic fight between cowboys and Indians, but also raises important questions: How can Native Americans find their identities in a society dominated by historical accounts that consider the settlement of the American continent “as the beginning of real “American” history”, and thus disregard the origin of Native American culture (Grassian 2005: 48)? How should one write new Native American histories in a country that distorts and ridicules Native American culture in movies and television series (11)?

By combining historical accusation with satirical pseudo-historical accounts, Alexie succeeds in making readers aware of the fate of his Native American characters. They hover between the quest for their own cultural origin and archetypal Indian roles that are forcibly assigned to them by Euro-American narratives (Cox 1997: 56). With alternative versions to the “official” history of the American conquest, he emphasises identity crises common among modern Native Americans. His characters echo the ongoing struggle of contemporary Native Americans, who, as Alexie suggests, remain victims of cultural colonisation and keep on searching for authentic Native American identities.

4. Conclusion

“[W]e can all hear our ancestors laughing in the trees. But we never can tell whether they’re laughing at the Indians or the whites”, Victor observes in “A Drug Called Tradition” (Alexie 1994: 13). Interestingly enough, Sherman Alexie is not unlike Victor’s ancestors who would probably laugh at both Thomas Builds-the-Fire and the American company “Washington Water Powers” who pays Thomas a great amount of money to be allowed to run power poles across his inherited land (Alexie 1994: 12, 13, McFarland 1997: 35). The Spokane author Alexie is remarkably inconsistent in his depiction of his contemporary Native American characters and often seems to laugh at both Native Americans and a white-dominated American culture that continues to diminish Native America by means of literature and the media.

Alexie’s short story collection The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven is one of the author’s essential works in so far as he does not only portray Native Americans as helpless victims of cultural misrepresentation but also reveals self-destructive tendencies of Native Americans who are victims of their own selves. His characters’ loss of identity and the struggle of finding authentic Native American identities are not simply caused by an oppressive American popular culture but by self-denying and restrictive notions nurtured on the Spokane reservation, where Native Americans are trapped in inactivity and addiction.

Often torn between historical sensibilities for the atrocities committed against Native Americans and visions of hopeful new Native American identities, Alexie succeeds in establishing a fictitious world that puts another focus on contemporary Native American culture: his characters do not accept histories that merely perceive Native Americans as a conquered people but rebel against misrepresentations with new concepts of contemporary Native American life on the reservation. In Alexie’s short stories Native Americans try hard to find their cultural niche amid their lost tradition and a dominant culture they can never be wholly part of. In their visions of a better life, they keep European settlers from conquering them and become Western heroes and conquerors themselves. Creating pseudo-historical narratives, Alexie demands corrected Native American history, history written from a Native American perspective rather than a Euro-American one.

By depicting Native Americans as both stereotypical Indians and authentic ‘rez kids’, as both victims of white-dominated histories and victims of their own tribe, Alexie deliberately confuses the reader. He makes use of the same stereotypical notions of Native American culture he wants to condemn and is ambivalent in delivering a verdict: both American culture and a Native American environment are found guilty in that they restrict Native Americans from choosing authentic identities.

Only by means of turning history upside down and subverting acknowledged concepts of Indians, Alexie is finally able to make readers aware of an existent contemporary Native American culture completely unlike established distorted American perceptions of Native America. Fusing severe criticism of dominant American history and humorous depictions of ‘pseudo’ Native American warriors, Sherman Alexie succeeds in depicting Native Americans as authentic human beings. His characters are individuals who, despite the loss of traditional culture and severe problems on the reservation, do not cease to struggle for new generically Native American identities.

Bibliography

Primary Sources:

Alexie Sherman. Reservation Blues. New York: Warner Books, 1995.

Alexie, Sherman. The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven. New York: Harper Perennial, 1994.

Secondary Sources:

Monographs

Churchill, Ward. Fantasies of the Master Race: Literature, Cinema and the Colonization of American Indians. Ed. M. Annette Jaimes. Monroe ME: Common Courage, 1992.

Erdrich, Louise. Love Medicine. New and Expanded Edition. New York: Harper, 1993.

Grassian, Daniel. Understanding Sherman Alexie. Columbia, South Carolina: University of South Carolina Press, 2005.

Grimm, Nancy. Beyond the “Imaginary Indian”. Zur Aushandlung von Stereotypen, kultureller Identität & Perspektiven in/mit indigener Gegenwartsliteratur. Heidelberg: Universitätsverlag Winter GmbH, 2009.

Hawthorne, Nathaniel. The Scarlet Letter. Oxford World’s Classics. Ed. Brian Harding. Oxford, New York: Oxford University Press, 1998.

Lincoln, Kenneth. Native American Renaissance. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1983.

Momaday, N. Scott. House Made of Dawn. New York: Harper Perennial, 1999.

Schröder, Nicole. Kulturelle Selbstentwürfe in zeitgenössischer indianischer Literatur. N. Scott Momaday, Sherman Alexie und Wendy Rose. Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang GmbH. Europäischer Verlag der Wissenschaften, 2003.

Weaver, Jace. That the People Might Live: Native American Literatures and Native American Community. New York: Oxford University Press, 1997.

Welch, James. Fools Crow. Penguin Books. New York: Penguin Group, 1987.

Wilson, Norma. The Nature of Native American Poetry. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2001.

Articles in Journals and Anthologies

Bird, Gloria. “The Exaggeration of Despair in Sherman Alexie’s Reservation Blues.” Wizaco Sa Review 11, no. 2 (1995): 47-52.

Cox, James. “Muting White Noise: The Subversion of Popular Culture Narratives of Conquest in Sherman Alexie’s Fiction”. Studies in American Indian Literature 9, no. 4 (Winter 1997): 52-70.

Gillan, Jennifer. “Reservation Home Movies: Sherman Alexie’s Poetry”. American Literature 68 (1996): 91-110.

Hafen, P. Jane. “Rock and Roll, Redskins, and Blues in Sherman Alexie’s Work”. Studies in American Indian Literature 9, no. 4 (Winter 1997): 71-78.

McFarland, Ron. “Sherman Alexie’s Polemical Stories”. Studies in American Indian Literature 9, no. 4 (Winter 1997): 27-38.

Porsche, Michael. “Alexie, Sherman [J. Jr.]“ Metzler Lexikon Amerikanischer Autoren. Ed. Bernd Engler und Kurt Müller. Stuttgart; Weimar: Metzler, 2000. 18-19.

Purdy, John. “Crossroads: A Conversation with Sherman Alexie”. Studies in American Indian Literature 9, no. 4 (Winter 1997): 1-18.

Richardson, Janine. “Magic and Memory in Sherman Alexie’s Reservation Blues”. Studies in American Indian Literature 9, no. 4 (Winter 1997): 39-51.

Rowlandson, Mary. “A Narrative of the Captivity and Restoration of Mrs. Mary Rowlandson”. The Norton Anthology of American Literature. Shorter Sixth Edition. Ed. Nina Baym. New York, London: W. W. Norton & Company, Inc., 2003. 136-137.

Internet

Chapel, Jessica. “Sherman Alexie – poet, novelist, short-story writer, Native American –strikes out at the “eagle-feathers school of Native literature“. The Atlantic Online (June 2000):

<http://www.theatlantic.com/unbound/interviews/ba2000-06-01.htm>

[accessed 18 August 2009]

Fraser, Joelle. “Sherman Alexie’s Iowa Review Interview”. Iowa Review (2001):

<http://www.english.uiuc.edu/maps/poets/a_f/alexie/fraser.htm>

[accessed 18 August 2009]

Lincoln, Kenneth. Excerpts from “Futuristic Hip Indian: Alexie“. Sing With the Heart of a Bear: Fusions of Native and American Poetry, 1890-1999. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000:

<http://www.english.illinois.edu/maps/poets/a_f/alexie/onalexie.htm>

[accessed 18 August 2009]

Films

Dances with Wolves. Dir. Kevin Costner. Tig Productions, 1990.

Stagecoach. Dir. John Ford. Walter Wanger Productions, 1939.

The Lone Ranger. Dir. George B. Seitz Jr., George Archainbaud et al. Apex Film Corp.; Wrather Productions, 1949-1957.

[2] Distorted Euro-American notions of Native Americans will be discussed in detail in Chapter 3.

[3] It may be noted that neither the Native American Renaissance nor its authors will be discussed in detail. The focus is solely set on its importance to the development of Native American representation in the history of American literature. For further information on the Native American Renaissance, see Lincoln 1983.

[4] Cf. Sherman Alexie: „The way I lived my life, and the way inside me, and the way I thought, [is] a mix of traditionalism and contemporary culture“ (Purdy 1997: 13).

[5] Interestingly enough, the character Nector in Louise Erdrich’s Love Medicine also criticises Hollywood’s tendency to cast Native Americans as unnecessary minor actors that are doomed to die in the end: “[T]he greater world was only interested in my doom.” (Erdrich 1993: 124). For detailed information on the depiction of Native Americans in Hollywood movies, see Churchill 1992.

[6] Alexie’s  image of a horse-stealing Native American could also be regarded as an allusion to James Welch’s novel Fools Crow. Welch depicts a horse-stealing warrior in Chapter 4 (Welch 1987: 30, 31). However, in my opinion, Alexie’s use of the image is so reminiscent of stereotypical Indian literature and film that it has to be interpreted as an ironical comment on the latter.

[7] For more information on Thomas’ role as a storyteller and his similarities to the Native American trickster, see Schröder 2003: 118, 119.

[8] Gloria Bird argues that Alexie portrays Native Americans as “social and cultural anomalies”. She criticises the author’s depiction of the Spokane Reservation and accuses him of “stereotyping native people” himself (Bird 1995: 49). I would disagree with Bird since alcoholism and depression remain endemic problems among Native Americans. On most Native American reservations, alcohol remains the “the available opiate of the poor and the oppressed” (McFarland 1997: 38, Weaver 1997: 11, Grassian 2005: 9).

[9] Cf. Chapter 3.3.

[10] Magic realism will not be discussed in detail. For more information see Schröder 2003: 96, 106, 108, 111.

As if her body was made to be drawn.

A perfect piece of art, I find.

The first woman to be worshipped by a man.

Her outward beauty pairs with inner strength,

Grandeur, passion, and nobility of mind.

Some big words here, but when I look at her

Words fail me.

I savour the moment and remain silent.

“Blank Manifesto” was created by Jens Kuestner, John Maguire and Thomas McCaldon. Part of an assessment for Alex Houen’s literature module “America and the Avant-Garde” (School of English, University of Sheffield, UK), the project combines various medias and art forms, such as film, the body as a means of performance, and language. Blank Manifesto consists of the actual manifesto (see below) and a film version of so-called happenings that were performed in various English cities in 2007.

If you’re interested in that project, watch the video, read the manifesto and also take a look at the excerpt from “Critical Explanation of “Blank Manifesto” (also see below). Although the project is substantially inspired by various writers, art movements and literary thought, it should be an enjoyable experience for you without knowing a lot about the theoretical background. Enjoy!

film version of “Happenings”

http://de.youtube.com/watch?v=sg6nsOYspAU

excerpt from

Critical Explanation of “Blank Manifesto” (jens kuestner, john maguire, thomas maccaldon)

The style of “Blank Manifesto”, in a similar manner to Frank O’Hara’s mock manifesto, ‘Personsim’, a caricature of the high-serious tone of Charles Olson’s ‘Projective Verse’, satirises the overtly didactic tenor assumed by such Avant-Garde movements as Surrealism and Futurism. The literary references in “Blank Manifesto”, such as those to Kafka and Eliot, are juxtaposed with modern mediums of communication, particularly the online social network ‘Facebook’ and the distribution of business flyers, thus further parodying the self-involvement of such aforementioned movements. The convoluted diction and the repetition of ‘Blank’ suggest the absence of grounding in reality in such movements, echoed in our distribution of blank flyers devoid of any content. The manipulation of our manifesto’s ‘mise-en-page’ is a rejection of standardized presentation of the printed word. Similar to the ‘happenings’ by Allan Kaprow, which escaped the confinement of the stage, the manifesto strives to escape the limitations of the page [...].

Blank Manifesto

BLANK

A REBELLION AGAINST MECHANICAL

EXISTENCE

WE COMMIT TO THE ACHIEVEMENT OF A PURE STATE OF

CONSCIOUSNESS (TRUE PSYCHIC AWARENESS)

THE REALISATION OF THE BLANKNESS AGAINST WHICH

OUR UNIQUE FACETS OF IDENTITY WILL BE FORCED INTO

RELIEF

BLANK AN UPRISING AGAINST THE TYRANNY OF

(the word is a virus) EXPRESSIONLESS LANGUAGE

SENSELESS

HALF-CONSCIOUS COMMUNICATION

IDENTITY

is expressed

VIA

As he logged into FACEBOOK one LANGUAGE

morning, he found himself trans-

Formed into a monstrous Ungeziefer

[EDIT YOUR PROFILE]

BLANK

AN

UPSURGE AGAINST THE

CHOKING TENTACLES

OF CONFORMITY (self-imposed irrelevance)

IDENTITY DEFINED BY WHAT I CHOOSE

BLANK

AN ADHERENCE TO THE ERADICATION OF EXTERNAL FALSE-SELVES

the achievement of the actual functioning of thought

REAWAKEN THE SLEEPWALKERS

MAKE ROOM FOR BLANKNESS!

“Blank Manifesto” was published by Route 57, the University of Sheffield’s School of English online writing magazine.

http://www.route57.group.shef.ac.uk/5experimental.html

The following essay tries to capture the richness of the author’s male and female characters and tries to reveal Hemingway’s deliberate ambivalence in the depiction of masculinity and femininity. Also, it pays tribute to one of the greatest 20th Century American authors, possibly even the most crucial American author who, unfortunately, was continuously misunderstood by both the critics and the media.

From what I can tell, “A Farewell to Arms”, published in 1929, is Hemingsway’s masterpiece. Also, beside Remarque’s “All Quiet on the Western Front”, published in book form in the same year, it is one of the most important accounts of the First World War. I recommend you to read the novel (at least you should read excerpts) before you turn to the essay.

Frederic Henry’s Lost Paradise – From a Masculine World to Devoted Love in “A Farewell to Arms” by Ernest Hemingway

Jens Kuestner

With regard to his depiction of female characters and the role of women, Ernest Hemingway has constantly been accused of adopting sexist ideas and male chauvinism. With the rise of feminist literature and gender theories in the 1960s, his ‘masculine’ style as well as his blatant focus on the male world, as for instance in “The Sun also Rises” (1926), was severely criticized by literary theorists (Sanderson 171).

Interestingly enough, Hemingway’s second and arguably most accomplished novel “A Farewell to Arms” (1929) is characterized by ambivalence with regard to the depiction of male dominance. The following essay will argue that “A Farewell to Arms” is not merely concerned with a focus on masculinity; most notably the story is predominantly centered on a love relationship between a man and a woman. I will focus on the main character’s shift from a male-centered world to a devoted but doomed relationship. Major focus is set on the ambivalence between Frederic Henry’s obvious sexist behavior and his faithful commitment. The essay will point out how Hemingway skillfully moves from an all-male world into a paradise of love without dispensing with a stoic and disillusioned philosophy towards life.

Entrapped in a masculine world

Hemingway proficiently focuses on a meticulous description of male behavior during World War I. His description of the disillusionment of the soldiers in “A Farewell to Arms” belongs to the most powerful war accounts in conflict literature. Most notably, the author’s emphasis is set on male characters that are incapable of devoting themselves to relationships. His characters dedicate themselves to war prostitution (Hemingway 189) and alcoholism (7) to bear the disappointment and the toughness of the war at the Italian front (54-57). By introducing the main character Lieutenant Frederic Henry and his friend Rinaldi, Hemingway features two characters who escape from the horrors of war into a world characterized by sexual romances. Their “adventures” (11) in various Italian cities are mere attempts to forget the cruel reality of the front. Although he prefers an affair, Henry’s former experiences with prostitutes do not substantially differ from his romance with Catherine Barkley. When he meets the English nurse for the first time and gets involved in an affair, he clearly does not love her but rather seeks bodily pleasure and relaxation:

“Yes,“ I lied. “I love you.” I had not said it before. […] I did not care what I was getting into. This was better than going every evening to the house for officers where the girls climbed all over you and put your cap on backward as a sign of affection between their trips upstairs with brother officers. I knew I did not love Catherine Barkley nor had any idea of loving her. This was a game […] (Hemingway 30).

Henry’s indifference to the depths of relationship is caused by a stoic attitude towards love that can be observed throughout the novel. “[He] becomes the borderline nihilist, the cynic whose world has frozen him almost numb, the would-be thinker who takes refuge in examined hedonism as if it were a private art gallery” (Vandersee 55).

I argue here that Henry’s early inability to serious commitment is caused by the masculine role models of his surroundings. Shaped in a war environment, where immoral sexual experience is the only activity that provides pleasure, Henry is a mere ‘hanger-on’. The priest, on the other hand, seems to distance himself from wartime prostitution and thus is constantly victimized by the other soldiers for not adopting their lifestyle. His moral refuge, namely his home in the Abruzzi, is ridiculed and blasphemed by the soldiers: “He [the priest] should have fine girls. I will give you the address of places in Naples. Beautiful young girls – accompanied by their mothers. Ha! Ha! Ha!” (Hemingway 8).

Similar to the priest’s refuge[1], Frederic Henry has to find a resort to be able to dedicate to his love. He cannot love Catherine Barkley until he leaves the front and its male world. Hemingway deliberately puts his hero at the front where he is injured in order to place him in a new environment, that is, the hospital, an environment of divine love where he builds a love relationship with the nurse that cares for him: “[…] The protagonist of this novel flees from the corrupt and untrustworthy male world into a woman’s arms” (Sanderson 181). Forsaking the corruption of war prostitution, absurd and random killing at the front, and the company of shallow and drunk soldiers, he is finally enabled to devote to a relationship he has not experienced before.

The gain and loss of a devoted relationship

Having been wounded severely in the legs by a trench mortal shell (Hemingway 54, 59), Henry is transferred to a hospital in Milan. When he meets Catherine again, he suddenly realizes that he loves her:

She looked fresh and young and very beautiful. I thought I had never seen any one so beautiful. “Hello,“ I said. When I saw her I was in love with her. Everything turned over inside of me. She looked towards the door, saw there was no one, then she sat on the side of the bed and leaned over and kissed me. I pulled her down and kissed her and felt her heart beating (Hemingway 91).

Whereas their affair in a war environment lacked devotion and commitment, the lovers now dedicate to a relationship “that will become their private retreat from a deceptive, lawless world” (Sanderson 181).

Hemingway’s repetitive use of the personal pronouns “we” and “they” stresses the unity of the lovers and separates them from rest of the world. When Catherine delivers the news about her pregnancy, the two lovers establish a ‘oneness’ between them: “We are the same one and we mustn’t misunderstand on purpose. […] Because there’s only us two and in the world there’s all the rest of them. If anything comes between us we’re gone and then they have us” (Hemingway 139). Although Henry still sticks to stereotypical male activities, such as drinking alcohol (87, 171) and embracing sexual hedonism (92, 106, 151-153), he adopts a new philosophy of togetherness that seems to overcome the obstacles of the world (Sanderson 181). Catherine’s hair that falls down on him gives Henry the feeling of being “inside a tent or behind a falls” (114) and serves as a metaphor for the lovers’ withdrawal from civilization. However, it is worth noting that the oneness of the couple is a rather ambivalent one, since it seems as if Catherine simply gives up herself in order to please Henry’s needs: “I want what you want. There isn’t any me any more. Just what you want. […] There isn’t any me. I’m you. Don’t make up a separate me” (Hemingway 106, 114). Hemingway deliberately plays with the contrast of the lovers’ oneness and concepts of male dominance.[2]

Finally, the united lovers who regard themselves as a married couple (although they have not been married in a civil ceremony) find their resort when they flee to Switzerland. It is in an environment far away from the war where Henry can dedicate to a relationship and forget about the war: “The war seemed as far away as the football games of some one else’s college. But I knew from the papers that they were still fighting in the mountains because the snow would not come”. (291). However, after a difficult escape from the grim masculine world at the front, he is not granted a paradise with Catherine Barkley, which is foreshadowed by the narrator. By depicting a change in nature, Hemingway consciously stresses the lovers’ harmony that is about to change, a harmony that is so ideal that it cannot last for a long time: “The weather became quite warm and it was like spring. We wished we were back in the mountains but the spring weather lasted only a few days and then the cold rawness of the breaking-up of winter came again” (310).

After the death of his child and the only love he has ever had, the hero is left completely alone in the rain (332). Similar to the beginning of the novel, where he marched through rain (4), he has returned to a male-centered world and a nihilistic attitude. With the death of Catherine, Henry is inevitably reborn as an existential hero who has lost everything (Killinger 104). “There isn’t anything […]” (Hemingway 315), Henry tells a dog that is looking for food in the cans, and thus echoes his own fate as a lost man.

Hemingway skillfully depicts the journey of his hero Frederic Henry who breaks away from the front and its male world in order to become a devoted lover in the couple’s resort in Switzerland. Interestingly, the author does not merely separate the two contrasting worlds but provides ambivalent portrayals of male dominance. Although Henry escapes from the front, he does not get rid of various male stereotypes, nor does he assign a subordinate role to the heroine. The oneness between the characters sets them apart from the corruption and grim reality in the trenches of World War I. However, Hemingway remains ambivalent in his depiction of the lover’s apparent harmony. Although they find their devotion to each other when they distance themselves from the rest of society, both characters are not granted a divine paradise but are broken by the realities of war and death.

At the end of the day, Henry’s entrapment in a masculine world remains the novel’s main issue. The Hemingway hero is not able to break out of an existential attitude towards life but stays behind as a wrecked deserter in the rain who has lost the only thing he committed his whole life to.

Works Cited

Hemingway, Ernest. A Farewell to Arms. New York: Scribner, 2003.

Killinger, John. “The Existential Hero.” Twentieth Century Interpretations of A Farewell to Arms. A Collection of Critical Essays. Ed. Jay Gellens. New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1970. 103-105.

Sanderson, Rena. “Hemingway and gender history.” The Cambridge Companion to Ernest Hemingway. Ed. Scott Donaldson. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996. 170-196.

Vandersee, Charles et al. “The Stopped Worlds of Frederic Henry.” Studies in A Farewell to Arms. Ed. John Graham. Columbus, Ohio: Charles E. Merrill Publishing Company, 1971. 55-65.

Whipple Spanier, Sandra. “Hemingway’s Unkown Soldier: Catherine Barkley, the Critics, and the Great War.” The American Novel. New Essays on A Farewell to Arms. Ed. Scott Donaldson. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990. 75-108.

http://www.theparisreview.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/5585

http://us.history.wisc.edu/hist102/pdocs/obrien_story.pdf

Attacking American ideas of masculinity – O’Brien, Percy and the deconstruction of male identities

If one comes across the genre ‘conflict literature’ one would probably expect pieces of literature that deal with the detailed depiction of war events as well as the portrayal of the death of numerous civilians and soldiers. Readers would probably expect the author to focus on the delineation of a specific war and its various incidents.

Interestingly enough, there have been 20^th century authors, such as O’Brien and Percy, who are more interested in the depiction of ideas of masculinity than in an actual depiction of a war itself.

The following essay will argue that O ‘Brien’s “How to Tell a True War Story” and Percy’s “Refresh, Refresh” predominantly deal with concepts of masculinity rather than with the delineation of war topics. I will focus on what I call ‘war as male initiation’, ‘the inabilities of men to go grow up’, and ‘male violence with a centre on the male body’ – a theme that is most crucial in both stories.

Almost similar to Mark Twain’s “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn”, a story about (a) male initiation, O’Brien’s and Percy’s short stories can be regarded as stories dealing with men trying to grow up. In contrast to Twain who focuses on a journey down the Mississippi, “Refresh, Refresh” deals with war as a means of turning boys into men. Imagining a war-like scenario, Gordon and his friend Josh try to invent their own war in order to prove their masculinity. The risky act of scaring Seth Johnson as well as Gordon’s comment “Don’t pussy with me, Josh” can be regarded as textual evidence for the argument that the two boys are trying to grow up by getting involved in a potential ‘war environment’. Similar to their fathers who are portrayed as brave and powerful men through war experience, the two boys try to reach manhood by overcoming their fears.

However, Percy makes clear that his characters are incapable of growing into responsible-minded men. Gordon and Josh merely grow into masculine stereotypes, that is, men who fight, drink (after having tried coke, they turn to alcohol) and commit to dangerous games. Almost echoing Rat Kiley in “How to Tell a True War Story”, a soldier whose childish behaviour strikes the reader’s interest, Gordon and Josh cannot overcome the loss of a responsible-minded father figure that was taken away from them when the Iraq War started. Both O’Brien’s and Percy’s characters are desperately trying to prove their manliness, however, they fail to adapt to a positive male role and engage in childlike yet violent games.

The afore-mentioned games usually deal with violence as a means of expressing masculine dominance. Both O’Brien and Percy question fixed American ideas of masculine identity and depict male violence in order to deconstruct and ideal image of masculinity. Both Rat Kiley (in “How to Tell a True War Story”) who kills a water buffalo due to his loss of male identity and the identity of an honourable soldier, and Gordon (in “Refresh, Refresh”) who deliberately emasculates a deer, use violence in order to stress their seeming ability to gain male control over their environment.

However, Percy rather portrays alienated characters that can be regarded as victims of their own violence. They do not grow into ideal men, nor are they able to deal with the loss of a father figure:

“[…] And if we went down, he would go down swinging as he was sure his father would. This is what we all wanted: to please our fathers, to make them proud, even though they had left us.” (see link to ‘The Paris Review’)

Interestingly enough, Percy’s and O’Brien’s focus on male violence is combined with a male-centricity: both short stories do not feature a single female character in detail; women are rather portrayed as passive victims than individual characters.

Taking into account the blatantly obvious focus on a male environment and the absence of detailed depiction of soldiers fighting a potential enemy, one can regard “How to Tell a True War Story” and “Refresh, Refresh” as stories substantially dealing with ideas of masculinity, not war itself.

Having considered the topics of ‘war as male initiation’, the inability of boys to grow up and their need for extreme violence, I conclude that both stories face the reader with I, what I call, and ‘male initiation that is doomed to fail’. Characters, such as Rat Kiley, Gordon, Josh and Seth do not succeed in personifying American male ideals but function as victims of a society that commits to male violence, masculine sexist stereotypes and a literal de-familiarisation (e.g. the loss of the father figure).

At the end of the day, Gordon and Josh who enlist in the army adapt to a failed male role their fathers committed to. Rat Kiley remains a swearing, disrespectful sexist man who is incapable of dealing with his masculinity. Thus, American ideals of masculinity are rather deconstructed and portrayed as mere attempts to turn boys into men, a process that is not successfully achieved by the characters in both short stories.

It is knowing you’ll get your well-deserved sleep And letting you rest from the day’s sorrows.

It is holding you because you just deserve to be Sheltered when bad times have a go at us.

…

And if I had not…and had I but…

You fool! Had you but known that It cannot be Found so easily. And you, jumping from rock to Rock, delude yourself and cannot find what you’re Looking for.

…

It is fainthearted, fragile and often hard to find.

So glad I made this choice. I shall never take It for Granted.

No, I won’t. I can do without Browning, famous yet Simply too weak to echo the way we feel right now.

Ticket control is coming up. Somebody is Counting the passengers.

Remember that night when we were just lying There watching the moon and counting the stars? We held our breath, too overwhelmed to speak. These are the moments when I know it is so right To be with you. Count me in, my love.

Having reached the station, I close my sketchbook And get off the train with a confident sigh.