The Lovely Elements of "Every Little Hurricane"

Recently in class, we read and discussed a passage from The Lone Ranger and Tomb Fistfight in Heaven by Sherman Alexie entitled "Every Little Hurricane." There were definitely many parts of the reading that kept my attention. The aspects that the author seems to be getting at in the work also enticed me. In the end though, there were two main reasons why I loved the story.

First off, I absolutely loved how the author compares struggles and battles in real life within the family to that of storms and hurricanes in the natural world. The paragraph on page five of the passage, while short, is a excellent passage that shows the relation of the family's struggles to thundering storms.

"In those dreams, Victor and his parents would be sitting in Mother's Kitchen restaurant in Spokane, waiting out a storm. Rain and lightning. Unemployment and poverty. Commodity food. Flash floods." p.5

However, my definite favorite scene of the entire passage is actually near the beginning at the start of page two, where the two uncles are shown fighting. The undeniable contrast that Alexie depicts with the two uncles astounds me. Not only does she contrast how the uncles are physically different, "One was tall and heavy, the other was short, muscular." But she also shows readers the contrasting emotions that the uncle's experience while they fight against each other.

For instance, “he could see his uncles slugging each other with such force that they had to be in love. Strangers would never want to hurt each other that badly” is one of the few phrases that the author uses to demonstrate the distinction of uncles, their emotions, and the writing of the passage itself. The author then goes on to describe the love and hate within the looks of the uncles. Basically, I really enjoyed reading this part of the reading because I loved how Alexie intelligently used the element of contrast throughout it.

There’s also a second reason for why I was drawn to the uncle’s fight scene passage; in my opinion, Alexie really hits home with relating to real life when he talks about how no one at the party tried to stop the fighting of the uncles. “Witnesses” as he called them--no one was willingly change the situation. I personally feel like this occurs everyday in the real world. People may witness an act of violence or cruelty happening as they watch but not do anything to stop it.

I was slightly skeptical of this reading when we first given it; however, it has definitely proved to be one of my favorite readings of the school year thus far, which is including the readings from AP Composition that many of us had begun taking prior to College Literature. The elements Alexie uses to describe the contrast of the uncles, and also how he relates storms to everyday struggles all culminates together to fabricate an absorbing piece of work.