Humor, Music And Dreams

Reservation Blues (1995) was written by Sherman Alexie (1966-) amid the laterwave of "Indian Renaissance", where new Indian writers steered a return to theirtribal culture, bridging ancient Indian tales with modern civilization. Following intheir footsteps, Alexie upholds an Indian oral tradition. With a shift of focus from apersonal identity to a sense of community, he writes for the whole race as well as forhimself.While Alexie’s works in the early1990s were wrought with a sense ofpowerlessness, his first novel Reservation Blues exhibits a humorous tone,challenging the popular conception of Indians as a stoic and impassive people. Whatmakes him different, in addition to the use of humor and ironies, is his firm belief inpresenting a real picture of reservation lives without embellishing or mystifying them.Reservation Blues depicts the life journey of a rock-and-blues band on theSpokane Reservation. Living in a world of alcoholism, poverty and suicides, peopleon the reservation manage to laugh at their own miseries. Their life changes as thelegendary black singer Robert Johnson brings an enchanted guitar into the reservation.Empowered by the guitar, the band, named Coyote Springs, is formed by reservationmisfits Thomas the story-teller, Victor the bully along with his sidekick Junior, andlater expands to include two Flathead Indian girls. With much practice and musicalguidance from Big Mom the mystic genius, Coyote Springs seeks to try their luck in the big city. When their dream suffers setback by a major record label, they return tothe reservation, find strength and support from their cultural roots and set off again.The novel has been repeatedly dissected, but often from the perspectives of racialidentity and racial relations. Few focus on how Indians are able to survive and eventriumph as a people. Some even interpret the outcome of the story as a total failure ora dead end. This thesis hopes to find out how Native Americans use humor, music anddreams to counteract the stifling reality, thus answering the following questions:1)How do the reservation people find humor in an almost despairing environment?2)What role does music play in the reservation life?3) What is the significance of thedreams of the protagonists?4) How are these above three aspects combined tocontribute to the survival and even rebirth of Indian tribes?The backbone of my argument consists of theories of dark humor, especiallyhumor as a means of self-defense and a community adhesive, the history of blues asthe music of survival against suffering for African Americans, as well as the Freudiannotion of dreams as an outlet for pent-up desires otherwise suppressed by theconscious mind and the fulfillment of wishes against the backdrop of the Americandream.While humor is an inborn ability of Native Americans to laugh at reality anddreams the thread running through their spiritual lives, music offers the source ofinspiration that brings together different peoples. Aided by the incentive from outsidethe reservation, namely blues music brought by Robert Johnson, they find a way tobring out the best of their inner self, their gifts for taking sadness less literally andsoar above life itself with dreams, be them actual dreams or grand ambitions.It is in this process that Alexie succeeds in reinventing an Indian image. Insteadof grieving over the pain of Native Americans, Reservation Blues extols their survival.Backed up with the weapons of humor, music and dreams, Indians are able to extractjoy from suffering, to sing praises of misery and to find hope within despair.