Brandi Charlot
March 8, 2015
Introduction to Literature

Powerless Colors
An Analysis of Sherman Alexie’s “The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven” and Langston Hughes’ “On the Road”

Alice Walker stated, “the most common way people give up their power is by thinking they don’t have any.” Power is a mental attribute. Many people put boundaries around themselves. These self-imposed boundaries result in anguish, despair, pity, and ultimately a sense of powerlessness. Sometimes these boundaries are not only self-imposed, but society-imposed. The protagonists in Sherman Alexie’s “The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven” and Langston Hughes’ “One the Road both suffer through a state of powerlessness imposed on them by a racial prejudice society. This state of powerlessness provides both a physical and mental effect upon the protagonists. Victor, the protagonist in “The Long Ranger,” is a Native-American man that lives in Seattle, Washington. He lives with his girlfriend (who is a white woman) and drinks frequently. He is unemployed and eventually moves back to his reservation. Sargeant, the protagonist in “On the Road,” is a Black-American man. He is unemployed and looks for salvation at a church. The church refuses his pleas. He acts in rage, and subsequently, he is arrested and jailed. Racism in America has a long-standing tradition from the “March of Tears” to “Bloody Sunday.” Racism is “the belief that all members of each race possess characteristics or abilities specific to that race, especially so as to distinguish it as inferior or superior to another race or races” (Webster). People of color, such as Black-Americans and Native-Americans, are thought to be inferior to White-Americans. Many people hold this thought and form stereotypes such as certain races being lazy, unintelligent, violent, and etc.
In each short story, the