Colonial Epidermalization: A Thematic Study of Sherman Alexis's ‘The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven'

Abstract

Colonialism led to the fabrication of certain inferiority complexes on the part of the colonized subjects.The colonizers succeeded in doing so through the inclusive diffusion of racial stereotypes. This perpetuation made colonized nations like Native Americans lose their indigenous voices, and they soon assimilated themselves into the Euro-American world and its identities. The articles crutinises how the colonized subjects were not only physically persecuted, but their identities were also distorted, disfigured, and then misrepresented to the world. The colonisers shaped and sculpted these identities through an exploitive mechanism which Franz Fanontermed 'Epidermalization' in one of his famous works,Black Skin White Masks. The paper employs the conceptualization of Epidermalization with reference to' The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven' by Sherman Alexie. While using the concepts of Epidermalization of inferiority and internalization, the paper highlights how the continuous confrontation of binaries and inferiority during the process of Colonialism caused a heightened sense of desperation and frustration among the Native Americans along with the internalization of white supremacy.