Basketball is seen as a central part of Sherman Alexie’s The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fist Fight in
Heaven because it is a sport played by one of the main characters, Victor,
as a source of belonging and healing and makes new living legends on the reservation.
In “Indian
Education” we first learn that Victor started playing basketball when he was in
the fifth grade and it is something he followed all the way up throughout high
school. While he was the only Indian on an all white basketball team in high
school he still played for the love of the sport not because of anything it had
to do with his race (even though his race had always seemed to be on display playing for a
team with the mascot of “The Indians”). Victor continues to play basketball until he
messes up his knees while getting hit during a game. While in the story “Jesus
Christ’s Half-Brother is Alive and Well on the Spokane Indian Reservation” in
never says directly that the person caring for James is Victor, Alexie makes
subtle hints with the references to having difficulty with drinking and sobriety
and basketball feeling almost second nature to the character. This is seen when
the character starts trying to sober up and starts playing basketball again and
says “the old feelings and old moves are still there in my heart and in my
fingers” (127). Basketball has played a
very important part in Victor’s life and it seems the only time when he’s not
playing is in a time where drinking was his life.
In the
story “The Only Traffic Light on the Reservation Doesn’t Flash Red Anymore”
Alexie really shows how important basketball is on the reservation because it
makes living legends that everybody in town knows about. Even though Victor and
Adrian seem to be at a much later stage in their lives they still know about
all the up and coming basketball stars on the reservation like Julius Windmaker
who is only 15 years old. Even in his young age Victor refers to him as “the
latest in a long line of reservation basketball heroes” but Julius deserves the
recognition with all the work he has already put in (45). They make mention of
some of these basketball heroes like Silas Sirius who only scored on basket in
his entire career but is still seen as a legend with Victor and Adrian still
retelling the story of his single basket. This illustrates the point that
Victor makes on the next page with saying “A reservation hero is remembered
forever. In fact, their status grows over the years as their story is told and
retold” (48). While the hero status never goes away on the reservation and they
make walking legends, they are always looking for a new basketball star to look
for. After Julius has a bad game where he wasn’t as good as expected there is
already a shift in every bodies focus to new stars, even with Victor and Adrian
talking about the 3rd grader Lucy. While Victor talks about the hurt
that comes with losing a basketball player that they saw could make it all the
way they also move onto looking at the new person to take their place already
elevating kids to a living legend status.
I really like how you mention Victor playing on an all white team. To me, that's significant because Victor was able to excel at a white man's sport surrounded by white competitors. To me that's why the basketball players are seen as heroes. They're succeeding at a white man's game, and it's not often that people on the reservation succeed in the white world.
ReplyDeleteive never thought of basketball as a white man's game, according to most of the Indians on the reservation, they invented the game before the white man did, and thats why they are better at it. I see Victor being on the all white team to show that he is better than them and its his game. I would like to compare this to America, We as americans think of this country as ours even though we were not here first! they were
DeleteI feel very connected to your prompt. Growing up I played a lot of basketball, and used it as an escape from my own life. The sport brought heroism to the native american culture, and allowed them to excel at a predominately white-man sport.
ReplyDeleteWhy is it that we make famous sports figures our heroes? To the characters in the novel, anybody who was good at basketball in the reservation was instantly a hero and somebody to look up too. Why is this if the only thing they did was play basketball. Did they really do something important that really helped the reservation?
ReplyDeleteGood point Eugenio. I thought it was interesting that when someone got valedictorian...there was no praise but a free throw got a lot of attention. Being smart could've gotten them farther than making a few good shots.
DeleteI like what you are talking about Eugenio with looking up to somebody that hasn't really done anything other than play a sport. I look at it like what happened with Michael Vick and few years back and the dog fighting incident. Like yes he shouldn't have been doing something terrible like that but still he plays football and nothing else really, nobody told you to look up to him it just sort of happened with the way our culture looks at sports these days. And I can see it being very important on the reservation because they don't have much else in their lives.
ReplyDelete