In "Imagining the Reservation," the narrator says, "Listen, when I was young, living on the reservation, eating potatoes every day of my life, I imagined the potatoes grew larger, filled my stomach, reversed the emptiness," (Alexie 151) "Imagine a loaf of bread could feed the entire tribe," (Alexie 149) and "Imagination is the only weapon on the reservation." (Alexie 150) In "The Trial of Thomas Builds-the-Fire," Thomas uses his imagination to tell stories at his trial. These stories lead to other Native Americans relating to Thomas and trying to support him. In "A Good Story," Junior and his mother take comfort in Junior's story.
In "Imagining the Reservation," "The Trial of Thomas Builds-the-Fire," "A Good Story," and other stories in "The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven," Alexie creates characters who use their imaginations and/or the imaginations of others to help them get by in a world of poverty and suffering. Through these stories and characters, Alexie challenges the traditional notion that imagination is not valuable and is mostly something for children.
It's kind of weird how I only comment on your posts Mark, but I noticed the same sort of trend. Imagination is used as a tool for merely surviving the reservation, just getting by. However, in "Jesus Christ's..." I found that the narrator puts his faith in James and what James teaches and is far better of at the end of the story than any other narrator in the book in terms of a "happy" tone. I was wondering if you think maybe faith gives you the ability to prevail over the reservation and not just surviving it like imagination would do.
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