The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven

Use these essay questions as writing and critical thinking exercises for all levels of writers, and to build their literary analysis skills by requiring textual references throughout the essay.

Differentiation Suggestion: For English learners or struggling writers, strategies that work well include graphic organizers, sentence frames or starters, group work, or oral responses.

Scaffolded Essay Questions

Student Prompt: Write a short (1-3 paragraph) response using one of the bulleted outlines below. Cite details from the text over the course of your response that serve as examples and support.

1. Throughout The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven, tension exists between life on and off the reservation.

• How does the tension between the reservation and the city exemplify the theme of Cultural Belonging and Isolation? (topic sentence)
• Analyze how this tension often creates a sense of uncertainty concerning identity, cultural connection, and tradition.
• In your concluding sentences, articulate how Alexie reconciles this tension.

2. Although not every short story centers on Victor Joseph, he is the main narrator of Alexie’s short story collection. Some of the Victor-centric stories are told from Victor’s first-person perspective, while others are told from the third-person perspective.

• How does the presence of both perspectives help support the theme of Storytelling as Creative Agency? (topic sentence)
• Compare and contrast two stories, one that uses Victor’s first-person perspective and another that uses the third person.
• In your concluding sentences, evaluate how both points of view emphasize the above theme.

Full Essay Assignments

Student Prompt: Write a structured and well-developed essay. Include a thesis statement, at least three main points supported by textual details, and a conclusion.

1. In the introduction to The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven, Alexie struggles to articulate the “big theme” of the book and ultimately lands on this: “the sons in this book really love and hate their fathers” (xxii). Analyze the relationships between fathers and sons in the book. Consider the fathers and father figures in these stories. What is passed on to and inherited by their sons? What role does storytelling play in understanding these complex relationships?

2. On page 61, Thomas Builds-the-Fire is described as “a storyteller that nobody wanted to listen to.” Analyze how Thomas’s character is presented and developed throughout the collection. How is Thomas a vehicle for exploring the theme of Identity Through Dreams and Visions? Where is the convergence of storytelling and tradition? Use the story “The Trial of Thomas Builds-the-Fire” as the framework for your response, but refer to other stories as needed, as Thomas is an essential character throughout the collection.

3. Many characters in Alexie’s stories grapple with their identity and struggle to reconcile tradition with modernity. This tension is often shown through the motif of the warrior. Analyze how this motif is developed over the short story collection. What does it mean to be a warrior, and how do these stories attempt to redefine this in the contemporary age?