Societies Void in the Aimless Individual Essay

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Societies Void in the Aimless Individual We have all gone through this, the feeling of being judged whether it be because of our race or appearance. When we lack the confidence we will always feel that incompleteness, the feeling of not being able to fit in. The feeling that minority feels living in a country that doesn’t belong to them. We look around we ask ourselves if we fit up to the standards of America. What can we do to improve our stability in this world? In “The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven,” Sherman Alexie tells readers of a man who doesn’t feel stable outside of his comfort zone. How he constantly feels the need to give into stereotyping. The feeling of always being criticized by people that is not of the narrator’s ethnicity. Alexie uses characterization, conflict, and point of view to show the narrators constant battle of always feeling like the outcast when living off of the comfort of his reservation. Characterization in “The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven” shows that he always feels as if he didn’t fit into society when he was off his reservation. He was raised in Wellpinit, Washington on the Spokane Indian Reservation, and when he moved outside of the reservation it seems as if he feels like he can never meet the standards of people other than those he grew up with. He feels lost and incomplete: “Seems like I’d spent my whole like that way, looking for anything I recognized” (Alexie 15). His statement of him always looking for anything he recognized proves that he feels lonely, misplaced, and incomplete. So when he met his girlfriend and moved off of the reservation for a short time, it seems as if he was leaning on her to see if she could possibly be the something or someone that would help him understand all his loneliness. He probably feels such emptiness since he never attempted to find his passion, or what it was that would fulfill his life. The narrator also says, “Sometimes, though, I would forget where I was and get lost. I’d drive for hours, searching for something familiar” (Alexie 15). Those specific words alone shows plenty of characterization about how he is constantly searching for whatever it is that either made him so lonely or what can truly completely him. As if he still is trying to find life all over again. Alexie also uses conflict to show that there is a constant battle within him about how he thinks people are constantly judging him. Everywhere he goes he seems to encounter some type of racist issues with people who he thinks are judging him by either his race or appearance. He says, “I wanted to tell him that I didn’t really fit the profile of the country but I knew it would just get into trouble” (Alexie 15). On that account it seems possible that as a child he was raised in a family who has been victims of racial profiling. It also shows that he gives into stereotype because he seems to feed into that by letting what they say characterize the way he thinks. The narrator mentions, “He knew this dark skin and long, black hair of mine was dangerous” (Alexie 15). It is evident from that statement that he gives into the stereotype, he feels as if he is constantly being judged by his appearance. While knowing what the man at the register is thinking, he plays into that role inside of his own mind, and begins acting out the role of a criminal. It could’ve all been avoided if he would have just approached the cashier with a polite response to the questions being asked. It seems as if he likes playing that self-role of the “hardened criminal”. Point of view was also used to show us what the characters train of thought is. It shows from his stand point all the things he thinks and feels with all these conflicts that are surrounding him. At one point it showed how dramatic his thoughts became when he began to think, “. . . He stiffened, ready for the gunshot…
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