honors response 13

Okay so I feel like my posts all end up being the same thing week after week, so for my final post of this semester I will try and switch things up a bit.  So here goes...

For both of the books presented this past week, The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven really caught my attention.  For one, it wasn't written by Wendell Berry.  Yes, I understand that there was one or two other books that were presented that weren't written by him, but this one was on a completely different spectrum than all the other books.  The six other books (I believe it was six but don't quote me on it) that were presented in class were all about white people and their farms or them working on farms.  But The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven was about Native Americans living on their reserve.  Sure there was some mention of farming, but it did not play that big of a role in the novel.

So why did our professors choose this book for us (or at least some of us) to read?

I'm sure that all the books that were presented all had a common theme about them that our professors were aiming for, but if I'm going to be honest, it was rather difficult for me to relate this particular book to the others.

This is what I took away from the book:

Everyone on the reserve was expected to fail.  This realization came to me when the presenters were talking about the kid who was amazing at basketball made a mistake while playing (his name and his mistake both escape me).  He was found in the back of someone's house, drunk out of his mind.  But what really shocked me was that everyone else on the reserve almost expected him to fail at basketball at some point.  So naturally, this was coming.  The same happens to those who decide to leave the reserve. They leave, try to survive, society wont accept them, and they end up back on the reserve.  This happens so often that the Native Americans have almost given up all hope of leaving the reserve and exploring the world outside of their own.

So now after I have typed this, I'm realizing that there may be a connection this book has with the others.  The mindset of the Native Americans is quite the opposite of some of the characters we have seen in the other books.  Take The Grapes of Wrath for instance.  That family does all that they can to survive as they move from their home.  They work together in order to be successful.  The Native Americans in The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven initially have the drive to succeed, but quickly lose it as they realize the difficulties they have to go through.  However, one can argue that the Native Americans don't really have a choice.  They aren't accepted out in the "real world" (for lack of better words) because of their race so naturally they go back to the place where they belong and feel accepted: the reserve.  During these time periods of the books, it was much easier to be a white person attempting to survive in a new community of other white people.  But being a different race, the Native Americans were outsiders.  They almost didn't have a choice but to stay on the reserve.

All in all, I guess all the books did somewhat relate to each other, whether it be in agriculture or something else.  And maybe I'm totally missing something in The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven.  It was a bit of relief to have a novel that wasn't completely focused on a farm.