American Indian Theme

The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie demonstrates the life of a young, reservation boy who is trying to go above and beyond everyone’s expectations of how he is supposed to live his life. Arnold learns a lot about who he is and how it is possible to still be an Indian while being off the reservation. He wants hope and goes as far as leaving almost everything he knows behind to go find it. He chooses to live a life of opportunity and possibility. However, the road to these accomplishments are not easy. Arnold must go through death, pain, and suffering to get there. By reading the chronicles of his life, the reader becomes aware of certain themes that make the novel a uniquely Indian piece of literature. A few of

these themes consist of death, identity, and poverty. They exhibit how life on the reservation is much different than life in the non-Indian town of Reardan.
The theme of loss and death is nothing new to Arnold and the Indian reservation.

Arnold’s first taste of what it is like to see death came early on in the novel when his dad shot his dog because the family could not afford to take it to the vet. From this example, the reader can see that poverty is automatically linked with pain and death in the story (11-13). Another pattern in reference to death on the reservation is alcoholism. Both Arnold’s grandmother and Eugene died because of alcohol related incidents. Arnold knows death is inevitable, but he explains that it is not supposed to happen by something that could have been prevented. He announces that ninety percent of the funerals he has been to have been caused by alcohol in some way. His sister was no exception (205). It seems like Arnold was the only one on his reservation who had a chance at life. This is because he took his hope, and left the reservation. Mary technically left the reservation, but ended up in the same place just in a different state. Therefore, she never actually left. Because death is prevalent in this native community, they seem to expect death. In both Arnold’s grandma’s death and his sister’s, laughter is a common element. Arnold explains that “when it comes to death, we know that laughter and tears are pretty much the same thing” (166). It is seen that at both of these funerals, the whole town pretty much shows up. “Each funeral was a funeral for all of us. We lived and died together”

(166).
Arnold introduces himself right away by explaining that he is a hydrocephalic. Because he makes a point to introduce this factor about his life so quick in the story, the reader can assume that it is important to how Arnold sees himself. It is important to his identity. He sees himself as out of place. In chapter one, the word “weirdo” is used to describe himself a plethora of times. He has low self-esteem because has been called names and bullied about every day of his life. He self-deprecatingly gives himself the label of “retard” (4). A little later on he identifies himself as a cartoonist, but quickly changes ideas when he remembers that he is “a poor-ass reservation kid living with his poor-ass family” (7). The economic difficulties he faces come close to crushing any positive sense of self worth Arnold has. Through drawing brings light into Arnold’s world, it has trouble breaking beyond the clouds of poverty. However, Arnold’s math teacher sees something different in Arnold. He characterizes him as a “fighter” and someone who will not give up, encouraging him to leave the reservation in search of a place with more hope (43).
A third theme represented in the novel is that of poverty. It is not only Arnold’s family that is impoverished: his entire reservation is living in poverty. Arnold’s family did not even always have enough money for gas to drive him to school, but most of time he could hitch a ride with Eugene or someone else going into town (70). At Reardan, Arnold tried his best to hide his poverty. His dad gave him lunch money (even though they were poor enough to get free lunch) on the first day of school at Reardon so he did not have to be “the only Indian, and a sad sack who needed charity” (55). Eventually, after thinking of other possible responses, Arnold told his semi-girlfriend, Penelope that “yes, I’m poor” after she directly asked him if he was poor (127). He was afraid the students would make fun of him and judge him for having to hitchhike to school. But rather, the was taken aback by how much they cared about him. Alexie seemed to feature this theme to show a major issue with reservations and Indian culture. This was also a way for Arnold to realize that he had genuine friends. He said to himself, “if you let people into your life a little bit, they can be pretty damn amazing” (129). The reader can understand after reading this novel, that it is not the ones who have the money who win in the end, but those who have the heart.
Life on the reservation is very different than life in the town of Reardan.

For one thing, most people on the reservation are native people and most people in Reardan are white. This plays a hug role in Arnold’s identity. On the reservation, he is half-white and in Reardan, he’s half Indian. There is a line in the novel where Arnold says that people think he’s brown on the outside and white on the inside. Another difference has to do with death. The reservation has a death very often. Arnold is only fourteen and has been to forty-two funerals. There was no kid in Reardan who had been to no more than five funerals. Another difference is opportunity. Everyone has opportunity, but some have more than others. The kids from Reardan were all going to go to college, whereas the native kids had almost no chance. This partly stemmed from poverty, as well. These two different communities produced two different types of people: those with hope, and those without it. However, Arnold broke that mold in pursuit of something bigger than himself. Perhaps people down the line will follow in his footsteps to destroy this mold once and for all. Sherman Alexie demonstrated what is like to have a life revolved around death, identity, and poverty in a native American society. These themes allowed to reader to get a glimpse into what this type of life is like and how to ultimately burst out of it to reach higher

goals.