Since 1492, American Indians have been oppressed in various ways, and throughout history and popular culture, that oppression has often been accomplished through the use of stereotypical categories such as “the noble savage,” “the white man’s Indian,” and “the vanishing Indian.” In Sherman Alexie’s collection of short stories The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven as well as his novel Reservation Blues, Alexie deconstructs these stereotypes through the portrayal of the three main protagonists that appear in both works, all of whom are American Indian males who fit into well-known categories. Some critics argue presenting such stereotypical characters to an unknowing or ill-educated reading audience actually affirms and strengthens harmful stereotypes concerning American Indians, but the purpose of this paper is to provide evidence of the ways in which Alexie debunks these stereotypes by utilizing a unique blend of humor and sarcasm. This paper will also argue that in these works, Sherman Alexie inserts the Native voice back into the landscape of contemporary American literature by rewriting historical events through magical realism, as in the case of one character who inhabits the consciousness of a herd of horses that was slaughtered during the 1856 settlement of the Spokane River Valley. Ultimately, Alexie makes the reader aware of these stereotypes in order to educate his audience about the realities of American Indians in the United States, and the ways in which the prevalent images circulating in popular culture have a very real impact on American Indian identity today.
