abstract illustration of several people and items: a woman wading through a river, a Native American man in traditional headdress, bottles of alcohol, a sedan, a basketball, and a pair of eyes

The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven

by Sherman Alexie

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Student Question

What aspects of the narrator's "good story" in Sherman Alexie's The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven made his mother happy?

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In Sherman Alexie’s “A Good Story,” the narrator’s “good story” has a positive tone and hopeful nature. The story highlights the touching relationship between a tribal elder and a young boy, one that serves to strengthen social ties on the reservation, and this makes the narrator's mother happy.

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In "A Good Story," Sherman Alexie highlights the diversity of the Native American experience.

In the beginning, the narrator's mother gently points out that the narrator's stories are too sad. She laments that people cry too much in his stories and suggests that he tell a "good" story for once. Although the narrator insists that his stories are well-balanced — that people cry as much as they laugh in them — he acquiesces to his mother's wishes.

He begins to tell his mother a story about a tribal elder named Uncle Moses. In this story, Uncle Moses lives in a seemingly dilapidated home on the reservation—the house has no foundation, its thin walls have no insulation, and the bathroom appears to have fallen in on itself. Despite this, Uncle Moses appears content with his circumstances in life.

Perhaps because of his sanguine nature, Uncle Moses is highly popular with the...

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children on the reservation.

The narrator continues by telling of the strong friendship between Uncle Moses and a young boy named Arnold. By all appearances, Arnold is lonely. He's often teased by the other children because of his size and pale skin. Despite this, Arnold is graceful in his movements and is the best basketball player at the reservation grade school.

Arnold often visits with Uncle Moses, who makes him sandwiches during their time together. On one particular day, Arnold skips attending a baseball game in Spokane to spend time with Uncle Moses. This "unplanned kindness" touches Uncle Moses, and he tells Arnold that he has "done a good thing."

By telling this story, the narrator makes his mother happy. His story highlights the resilience of the Spokane Indian people and the strong social ties that serve as the underpinning of stability in their community.

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In "A Good Story" from Alexie's The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven, what made the narrator's story make his grandmother happy?

At the beginning of Sherman Alexie's "A Good Story," the narrator's mother complains that his stories are too sad. She asks for a story on a more uplifting topic, one which will demonstrate "that good things always happen to Indians too."

The story the narrator tells is a very short and comparatively uneventful one. Old Uncle Moses sits in front of the house he built fifty years before, thinking about how long it will survive after his death. He sees a boy called Arnold, who sometimes comes to visit him, running towards the house. Although Arnold is large and overweight, he runs with surprising grace, and Moses knows he is the best basketball player at his school. He reflects on "the strange, even improbable gifts a person can receive."

Arnold reveals that there is a school field trip to a baseball game that day, but he stayed behind because he wanted to visit Moses. The old man is touched by this act of "unplanned kindness," and tells Arnold that he has done a good thing. When Arnold asks for a story, Moses tells "this very story" that the narrator has just related to his mother. His mother shows her happiness by "singing an it-is-a-good-day song." She is pleased to have heard something so positive and innocent, in contrast to the narrator's usual dark subject matter. Her definition of a good story is not one that is exciting or technically skilful, but one which has an uplifting effect on her spirit.

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In "A Good Story," what makes the narrator's story pleasing to his grandmother?

In “A Good Story” in The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven, the narrator explains that his mother was not fond of the stories he told. She found them dark and disturbing and felt that he unfairly emphasized all the negative aspects of Native American life. Those stories were “bad” not because they were poorly written but because of the supposedly negative perspective that he employed. She requests that he tell a story about “good things” happening to Indigenous people.

He complies, and the resulting story actually turns out to be a story within a story. It centers on two characters, a boy named Arnold and an elderly man called Uncle Moses. The elderly man is a storyteller, and Arnold loves his stories. Arnold is overweight but runs well and also excels at basketball. However, he sometimes prefers to visit Moses and listen to stories over playing with his peers. One day Arnold arrives unexpectedly at Moses’s home, telling him that he has skipped a school field trip to a baseball game in favor of hanging out with the older man.

Moses, who comments on the value of “unexpected gifts,” received the visit with pleasure as an “unplanned kindness.” The story he tells in response to Arnold’s request is exactly this story. The narrator’s mother is so pleased to hear of the kindness and the closeness between two people of different generations that she turns it into a song.

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