Sherman Alexie: The Absolutely True Diary Of a Part-Time Indian Essay

698 Words2 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: American literature and culture

Being unwanted, uncared for, unloved and forgotten by everybody even by your own family is a much greater poverty than the person who has nothing to eat. As the book The absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie talks about an Indian boy, Arnold Spirit, who was born in the Spokane Indian reservation in Wellpinit with brain damage. Arnold takes us along on his journey and we learn how absolutely awful and devastating poverty is and it is not for an individual but for an entire community. This condition leads to senseless death. They never had the chance to be anything but poor and hopeless Indians. If they stop dreaming of being poor and start searching for hope and try to live up with high expectations and accept more to them. They will look to their future with excitement and confidence and begin to do more of what they ever imagined. As a result, they will have a better living condition. Throughout the novel, we learn from Arnold’s fight for a better life. He inspires us and gives us hope. He goes to Reardan where white people live searching for hope. There, he makes new white friends and changes their ideas about Indians. Another inspiration we see in this book is, Mary Spirit, Arnold’s older sister, who leaves her reservation to make her dream come true. She goes to Montana, gets married and starts focusing more on writing her romance novels rather than focusing more on the reservation opinions. Therefore, Arnold’s and Mary’s decision is that they are not simply Indians or White but human being who belongs to many tribes. Firstly, we see Arnold fighting for a better life. Through all the problems he faces such his medical problems along with stutters and lisps that enabled him to communicate well with ot... ... middle of paper ... ...e is easy. But this is not the reason why you should give up. Keep your hopes alive and you will be surprised of what you can accomplish if you can only set your mind to it. Because after all, you only live once, so why not try to make the most of it. Again, Sherman Alexie shows us in his book, The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, how the entire Spokane Reservation is facing poverty but Arnold and Mary Spirit fight for a better life. He goes through all the problems the characters face in the book, and how some choose to live the horrible condition for the rest of their lives but some keep their hopes alive and try their best to break the cycle. Therefore, learn to never give up on your dreams and always hope. Hope make the present moment less difficult to bear. No matter how hard life can get, if you only hope that tomorrow will get better, than it will

Show More
Related

  • Arnold's Obstacles

    751 Words  | 2 Pages

    In the novel, he shows toughness, courageousness, and the ability to overcome obstacles. Arnold shows these three components by writing comics and playing on the high school basketball team. He uses these traits to be the person he is in the book. Arnold proves that even when the odds may be against you, you can still fight for what you

    Read More

  • Indian By Sherman Alexie Literary Devices

    532 Words  | 2 Pages

    5. The use of short sentences in paragraph 7 creates an intense effect that are simple but strong enough to show Alexie’s determination.The consistent and straightforward arrangement of these short sentences can easily make the audiences feel Alexie’s efforts of studying hard as an intelligent Indian. Also, these short sentences created an confident and steadfast tone, emphasizing Alexie’s determination in reading and surviving.

    Read More

  • Sherman Alexie and Native American Writing

    1428 Words  | 3 Pages

    Sherman Alexie began his literary career writing poetry and short stories, being recognized for his examination of the Native American (Hunter 1). Written after reading media coverage of an actual execution in the state of Washington, Sherman Alexie’s poem Capital Punishment tells the story of an Indian man on death row waiting for his execution. The poem is told in the third person by the cook preparing the last meal as he recalls the many final meals he has prepared over the years. In addition to the Indian currently awaiting his death, the cook speaks of a black man who was electrocuted and lived to tell about it, only to be sent back to the chair an hour later to be killed again. He also recalls many of the meals he had prepared had been for dark-skinned men convicted of killing white people. The thought of racial discrimination in capital punishment seems to be the theme at first glance, but reading further indicates differently. The cook also ponders his own survival in the prison system as an inmate. Learning to cook and outlasting all the others before him, whether by age or fate, allowed him the opportunity to create food filled with love for the one that will die. After this final meal has been prepared by the cook for the condemned inmate to eat, fear and anticipation takes over his body. Just as proper temperature is needed for cooking, a proper amount of electricity is needed to operate the electric chair and this need creates a dimming and flickering effect in the prison reminding all those left behind of their possible fate:

    Read More

  • Indian Education Sherman Alexie Analysis

    554 Words  | 2 Pages

    In "Indian Education" by Sherman Alexie, the story is about our narrator of the story Victor. Telling the sad, miserable cruelty and the emotions that his fellow students and teachers gave him from 1st grade all the way through 12th grade. The meaning of this story at first seems the most current for kids in school; bullying each other and calling each other names but the story goes much deeper than that. It shows a reality of the life on the reservation and how the education system is terrible and demeaning to other children who are considered soft spoken. Two pieces of dialogue that were the most interesting to me happened to be "Give me your lunch if you're just going to throw it up," because it ends with the sentence "There is more than one way to starve.

    Read More

  • Essay On Smoke Signals And The Absolutely True Diary Of A Part-Time Indian

    554 Words  | 2 Pages

    “Alcoholism is an epidemic among Native Americans”(KCTS9). Many people believe that alcoholism is in the Native’s blood, but it is truly just a situational problem. On the reservations a majority of families are poverty ridden, and these families normally stay on the reservation their whole lives. Junior, a 14 year old Spokane Indian, manages to break the cycle of hopelessness and alcoholism in his family by leaving the reservation school to go to the white school in the novel The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian. Another character that Sherman Alexie brings to life, Arnold, is the typical alcoholic indian stereotype who allows alcohol to affect the course of his life in the movie Smoke Signals. In both Smoke Signals and The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, author Sherman Alexie shows how alcohol on the reservation can cause accidents, funerals, and heartache.

    Read More

  • Analysis Of The Absolutely True Diary Of A Part-Time Indian '

    762 Words  | 2 Pages

    Growing up as an only child, I was everything to my parents. They were always overprotective of me and wanted to be sure that I was never in danger. When I graduated high school, they expected me to stay in my hometown, living with them, to further my education at the local University Center. Unfortunately, despite what they wanted, I chose to be independent by going away for college. In The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie, Mary is in the same position I am. It is stated,  "Ever since the Spokane Indian reservation was founded back in 1881, nobody in my family had ever lived anywhere else"(Alexie 89). Not caring about her family 's history, Mary decides to pack up and leave the reservation. She has a vision for

    Read More

  • Poverty In America: Native American Tribes

    1320 Words  | 3 Pages

    As a White American, I have been virtually unaware of the harsh living conditions that Native Americans have been enduring. This past summer I was fishing and camping at a resort in northwestern Minnesota with my family. I realized that this resort was located on the White Earth Indian Reservation. As I drove around the towns that the resort was near, I saw that the Native Americans were terribly poverty-stricken. Besides the resort that my family and I were staying at and a small casino that was nearby, most of the buildings and houses were in poor condition. The majority of the houses were trailers and not something that I would call “livable.” This raised a few questions in my mind: Why are people on Indian reservations living this way and what other things besides housing are Native Americans lacking? As I began research on these questions, I found three major issues. Poverty, health, and education are three tribulations that, at this point, remain broken on American Indian reservations.

    Read More

  • Absolutely True Diary Of A Part-Time Indian By Sherman Alexie

    632 Words  | 2 Pages

    When you believe in yourself you can do anything you set your mind to. In Sherman Alexie’s Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, Arnold, the main character, takes basketball very seriously. Arnold lives on an Indian reservation, and he used to go to school there too. After a motivational conversation with one of his teachers, Arnold decides to go to Reardon, the all-white school with a better educational system. His switch to Reardon also means that he needs to switch teams. When Arnold from first meets the Coach of the varsity basketball team, he doesn’t know what to expect. He had first assumed that Coach would be racist, (like all of the other teachers.) but then after try-outs Arnold realizes that Coach is far more equal. “Heck,

    Read More

  • Indian Education Sherman Alexie Summary

    1255 Words  | 3 Pages

    In the story “Indian Education,” written by Sherman Alexie, Alexie tells the story of multiple events that happened during his lifetime. I can relate to a majority of those events, but the event that I can personally relate to the most is his move during his seventh grade year. Like Alexie, I was forced to switch schools from Moran to Humboldt; however, my move was in the sixth grade. Just like Alexie, I was forced to say goodbye to classmates who I had spent the last seven years growing up with. I realized that my life was changing completely in the blink of an eye. After struggling to adjust to the switch I had to encounter that first year, I learned a great lesson: “With change often comes new opportunities.”

    Read More

  • Absolutely True Diary Of A Part-Time Indian

    523 Words  | 2 Pages

    A sentence in the fictional book, The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, by Sherman Alexie that best describes the book is when Mr. P explicitly tells Juniors that he needs to have and maintain hope, “...you kept your hope. And now, you have to take your hope and go somewhere where other people have hope” (Alexie 43). Mr. P is trying to tell Junior that he needs to be hopeful that his dream will come true, which is to become successful and go against the norm life of an Indian on the rez. After this part of the book the author, Sherman Alexie, begins to add more instances where Junior needs to stay hopeful. Alexie creates many emotional circumstances for Junior which put his hopeful mindset at risk. Junior goes through many ups and downs on the rez that make him second guess his dream of breaking the norm of an adult indian. A developing theme in the story is hope. It seems that hope is crucial to Junior and dream of becoming a non-drunk, successful Indian.

    Read More

  • Experience In Sherman Alexie's The Absolutely True Diary Of A Part-Time Indian?

    1039 Words  | 3 Pages

    Everyone struggles with identity at one point in their life. It will eventually happen to everyone. Identity is how people see one another, it is one of the most important things about someone. Identity goes hand in hand with experience. One’s experiences can impact one’s identity. In Sherman Alexie’s The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, the main character Arnold, also known as Junior, has many health issues, and notably stands out in the crowd. It does not help that he is a poor Indian boy that lives on a Reservation, and that he decides to go to an all white high school. Many of his experiences at school, and on the Reservation impact his identity. Experience is the most influential factor in shaping a person’s identity because

    Read More

  • Absolutely True Diary Of A Part-Time Indian

    1275 Words  | 3 Pages

    The harsh difficulties of poverty has made the reservation feel hopeless. Arnold describes one of the many

    Read More

  • The Absolutely True Diary Of A Part-Time Indian

    894 Words  | 2 Pages

    In Sherman Alexie’s novel, The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, he chooses upon numerous themes in America’s 21st century. Alexie is an example of a great writer that brings many themes into one piece of literature. He accomplishes this by pulling in characters with different backgrounds and different views on things. He piles situations on top of each other that create multiple outcomes for the main character. Alexie makes a commentary about American society through plenty of themes, but the most apparent being bullying. This project contains cartoons done by me, that flow with each paragraph below. Each cartoon connects with the artifact in each paragraph through the big concept of bullying. Through pulling in themes from all

    Read More

  • Native American Culture Essay

    743 Words  | 2 Pages

    The circumstances the Native American people endured clarify their current issues. American Indians have poor education and a high percent are unemployed when equated to “U.S. all races” (Spector, 2009, p. 205). Many American Indians still live on reservations and work as a

    Read More

  • The Autobiography of an Indian Girl

    573 Words  | 2 Pages

    I lived in India for 15 years, since birth. I am not surprised that I was brought up in a rigid country. I was born in Patiala, a city of Punjab which is usually known for its antiqueness. Though I was born in Patiala, my upbringing was done in another town close to my birth city. My town was small but had a miscellany of people. One could find every kind of person in there. The first few years were not that hard; I used to go to school and then come back home. I enjoyed my life’s first few years but as it known that a coin has two sides my life was not totally a “Party all night”. I always had a bad gall bladder; it remained filled with urine all the time. My being shy always serves a great disadvantage for me. I had a hard time asking my teachers to use restrooms in case of urination. A teacher is not an omniscient who would know when I have to go to loosen myself. It would not be a surprise if I say I did it in my skirt all the time. Yes, I used to do that often and usually become a trouble maker for my teacher and the child care ladies who had to clean me. “She is a kid.” That us...

    Read More

More about Sherman Alexie: The Absolutely True Diary Of a Part-Time Indian Essay

Open Document