Coulombe Essay Summary by Rouzie

Coulombe notes that Alexie’s fiction has been criticized, especially by Indian writers, for trading in stereotypes and using humor to negatively represent Indian culture and life for the entertainment of white readers. Thus, according to these critics, Alexie fails to fulfill the responsibility of Indian artists to convey social and historical realities and to morally educate readers. Contrary to this view, Coulombe claims that in TLRATFIH Alexie is a trickster author who employs an identifiably Indian style of humor, a style that, according to Kenneth Lincoln, typically keeps readers off balance by achieving multiple, and at times contradictory, purposes. Alexie’s stories reveal the historical injustices of white oppression and colonization of Indians, and he uses humor to demonstrate Indian resiliency and humanity in the face of racism and poverty. Coulombe asserts that humor leads Alexie’s characters, in part, to new realizations and growth, that it challenges accepted versions of reality and invites readers to do the same. Alexie’s humor is a double-edged literary instrument that serves to heal, bind and connect, but that also can cause social disruption and disconnection. In Alexie’s story, “The Approximate Size of His Favorite Tumor,” James Many Horses’ incessant joking causes Norma to leave him, but their mutual joking is also the glue that binds them together and that helps them endure a driving-while-Indian harassment and shake-down. In some stories, Alexie reveals the self-contempt of characters’ inner colonization, while in others, he celebrates the beauty that still survives on the reservation. Ultimately, Alexie’s humor invites all readers into a shared space that can transcend boundaries but that also ensures that readers bear witness to a terrible history and its aftermath.