The novel The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, by Sherman Alexie has evidence of being a bildungsroman as Junior undergoes a great coming of age. His perspectives of the places around him evolve dramatically as the novel progresses. Throughout his journey, he endures tough losses of loved ones but is supported by the love of his friends and family. His daunting pursuit of hope leads him to the white community of Reardan where he learns that each community has flaws regardless of social economic standing. He is able to learn from his experiences in the novel, allowing him to develop as a person and discover his true identity. Throughout most of the novel Junior sees the reservation as a depressing land of broken dreams. He even goes …show more content…
as far as saying his reservation is “located approximately one million miles north of Important and two billion miles west of Happy” (Alexie 30). This exaggeration is intended to show exactly what Junior thinks of the reservation. The capitalizations of “Important” and “Happy” are meant to even further stress the point that Junior feels that the reservation is deprived of hopes and dreams and filled with poverty. He blames poverty as the cause of depression and alcoholism, as well as believing that the lack of money is what prevented his people from attaining their dreams, “we reservation Indians don’t get to realize our dreams. We don’t get those chances. Or choices. We’re just poor. That’s all we are” (Alexie 13). By being fixated on poverty, Junior believes that money is the basis of happiness and without money, he will not be happy. Junior says this during one of the critical moments of the novel: when he has to carry out his sick dog Oscar to be put down. He speaks the bleak truth that “A bullet only costs about two cents, and anybody can afford that” (Alexie 14). The death of an innocent animal symbolizes the destruction poverty causes on the reservation. The Spirit family would have gotten treatment for Oscar if they had the money instead, they needed to ease his pain the only way they could afford: by putting him down. Mr. P tells Junior that the reservation is responsible for the destruction of its resident’s hopes and dreams. He explains to Junior that “If you stay on this rez… they’re going to kill you. I’m going to kill you. We’re going to kill you. You can’t fight us forever” (Alexie 43). Mr. P believes that Junior has not given up on his dreams; that he is constantly fighting for them. When Junior finds out that his mother used his textbook when she was in school, he acts out throwing it at Mr. P because “that old, old, old, decrepit geometry book hit my heart with the force of a nuclear bomb. My hopes and dreams floated up in a mushroom cloud” (Alexie 31). He realizes that poverty is acting as an anchor, keeping him grounded from reaching new heights and succeeding in life. Junior is being persuaded to leave the reservation; to pursue his dreams, the only problem is that he does not know where to go. Mr. P explains to Junior “Son… You’re going to find more and more hope the farther and farther you walk away from this sad, sad, sad reservation” (Alexie 43). Junior is told that he can have a different future from his parent’s, or anyone else’s on the reservation. The fact that he has been able to keep his hope for this long is a sign that he can break the pattern and pursue a better life. In order for Junior to attain this, he needs to listen to Mr. P’s advice and escape the reservation to find a place where there is still hope left Junior is encouraged to go to school at Reardan, a prestigious school in a white farming community, in order to follow his dreams. He wants to go to Reardan to pursue a better life but, when he arrives for his first day, he begins to question his choice “So what was I doing in racist Reardan… the opposite of the rez. It was the opposite of my family. It was the opposite of me” (Alexie 56). He believes that he is heading into a world completely opposite to the one he has come to despise on the reservation. Contrary to his perspective of the reservation, he sees hope and money in Reardan. It is natural for him to feel out of place but he knows he must continue going to Reardan if he wants to keep his dream alive. When Junior first meets Penelope, he sees success in her, like how he sees Reardan to be a place of success. He believes that she is the embodiment of Reardan, both being symbols of hope and success. In his first conversation with Penelope, Junior says that he “was suddenly aware that she was the prettiest girl I had ever seen up close. She was movie star pretty” (Alexie 61). Junior is clearly attracted towards Penelope in a similar way that he is attracted towards Reardan. He sees characteristics of hope and fortune between Penelope and Reardan. Junior later finds out that Penelope is bulimic, that she “gorges on her pain and then throws it up and flushes it away” (Alexie 107). This is the first time in the novel that Junior sees a negative quality of Penelope which does not change his feeling for her. Consequently, only a few pages later Junior finds out another quality of Penelope and in turn, Reardan. Penelope expresses her thoughts about Reardan to Junior, “I hate this little town. It’s so small, too small. Everything about it is small. The people here have small ideas. Small dreams. They all want to marry each other and live here forever” (Alexie 111). The irony of this statement is clear, as Junior comes to Reardan to follow his dreams but then Penelope says that Reardan is limiting her dreams. Later in the novel, Junior explains his realization that “there are plenty of Reardan kids who get ignored by their parents” (Alexie 153). This conflicts with what he thought about white people: that they have everything they need. He realizes that the people of Reardan lack a strong community. Junior explains that “On the rez, you know every kid’s father, mother, grandparents, dog, cat, and shoe size. I mean, yeah, Indians are screwed up, but we’re really close to each other. We KNOW each other” (Alexie 153). The people of the reservation have a strong form of interconnectedness. This completely opposes the community created in Reardan. When looking back on page 56, Junior’s comments on Reardan are even more important. The reserve lacks money and hope but, has a strong community while Reardan has hope and money, they lack a sense of community. He is starting to understand that there are flaws everywhere but, there are also advantages within each environment. Throughout the novel, Junior broadens his understanding of the world around him, a sign of personal growth. The death of Grandmother Spirit brings to Junior’s attention how strong the Indian community is. Two thousand people come to show their respects for her and people stop picking on Junior. He notices this and writes “No matter what else happened between my tribe and me, I would always love them for giving me peace…” (Alexie 160). Even though people think that he betrayed his tribe, they still give Junior peace in a time when he needs it the most. The interconnectedness of the community continues to show when Ted, a wealthy white person, is publicly humiliated for his effort to return a powwow dress to the Spirit family that does not belong to them. This leads to another pivotal moment for Junior where “two thousand Indians laughed at the same time… It was the most glorious noise I’d ever heard. And I realized that sure, Indians were drunk and sad and displaced and crazy and mean, but, dang, we knew how to laugh” (Alexie 166). Despite everything that has happened to these Indian people, they still manage to laugh and celebrate the life of a great person. Junior sees the beauty in the sense of community that they have. He has his greatest realization when he is at the cemetery with his parents cleaning the graves of the recently departed. He becomes very emotional reflecting on his sister’s death, alcoholism inside the reservation and the fact that he is not alone in his quest: “There were millions of other Americans who had left their birthplaces in search of a dream. I realized, that, sure I was a Spokane Indian. I belonged to that tribe. But I also belonged to the tribe of American immigrants. And the tribe of basketball players…” (Alexie 217). He realizes that he is not just defined as half-white and half-Indian. His new identity is more complex than just his skin colour, or the colour of the people around him. He realizes that he belongs to many different tribes which are free of race, each with their own positive and negative elements where he can choose what he wants to become. Throughout his journey, Junior’s impression of the world and the reservation changes for the better.
He originally calls the reservation an isolated area distant from importance and happiness. He recalls a moment where he and Rowdy gaze at the reservation atop a tremendous pine, “We could see our entire world. And our entire world, at that moment, was green golden and perfect” (Alexie 226). Junior has such a good memory of seeing the perfection of the reservation because in the memory, he is with his best friend. It took great courage and trust for the two of them to climb that tree and neither of them would have climbed it if they were by themselves. This memory shows the strength of the bond that Junior has with Rowdy. Junior remembers the times when he was the most courageous, “I don’t know if anybody else has ever climbed that tree. I look at it now, years later, and I can’t believe we did it. And I can’t believe I survived my first year at Reardan” (Alexie 226). Junior remembers climbing the tree when reminiscing about his first year at Reardan. Both acts take immense courage but also reward him. He is able to find the good in places and people wherever he goes and takes that good and uses it for his advantage. When Rowdy comes back to Junior in the summer, he comes with insight for his friend, “the thing is, I don’t think Indians are nomadic anymore. Most Indians anyway… Hardly anybody on this rez is nomadic. Except for you. You’re the nomadic one” (Alexie 229). Rowdy relates Junior’s recent actions to those of the old, traditional Indian who thrived when they could still move around “in search of food water and grazing the land” (Alexie 229). When Indians were forced onto reservations, their culture and spirit was damaged. By becoming nomadic, Junior is stepping up for his dreams. He is taking the best of what he finds and uses it in order to help him attain his
goals. Junior has undergone a coming of age throughout this novel. Where in the beginning he was fixated on the negative aspects of the reservation, he then partakes on a courageous journey into a school off of the reservation. It is only when he leaves the reservation that he learns the good within it: the strong aspect of community. He is able to belong in both communities and understands that he is in fact part of many different tribes. He no longer identifies himself from his skin colour or the skin colour of the people around him but by everything he knows and loves. He is able to travel to a new place in Reardan and eventually thrive as a person there. Junior embodies the traditional idea of a nomadic Indian by succeeding wherever he goes.
Encountering struggles in life defines one’s character and speaks volumes about their strength, ambition, and flexibility. Through struggles, sacrifice, and tragedy, Junior in The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, by Sherman Alexie, adapts to survive difficult situations and faces his problems head-on. As he makes life changing decisions, adapts to an unfamiliar culture, and finds himself amongst misery and heartbreak, Junior demonstrates resilience to overcome adversity and struggles.
Can you imagine growing up on a reservation full of people with no hope? The character Arnold in the book The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie did. In the beginning of the book, Arnold was a hopeless Native American living on a hopeless reservation. In the middle of the book, Arnold leaves the reservation and finds out that his sister left too. By the end of the book, Arnold experiences a lot of deaths of people who mean a lot to him but he still found hope. Arnold becomes a warrior for leaving the reservation and going to Reardan.
Alexie, Sherman. The absolutely true diary of a part-time Indian. Groningen [etc.: Noordhoff, 2011. Print.
“But we reservation Indians don’t get to realize our dreams. We don’t get those chances.” (p. 13) In The Absolutely True Diary of A Part Time Indian, by Sherman Alexie, Junior, the narrator, is an Indian teenage boy living on a reservation, where no one's dreams or ideas are heard. The Indians on the reservation feel hopeless because they are isolated and disenfranchised. Junior learns how to cope with his hopelessness and breaks through the hopeless reservation life to find his dreams. Examining his journey provides important examples for the reader.
The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian showed all of the problems that arose in Junior’s journey. From poverty and alcoholism to bulimic semi-girlfriends, he had so many excuses to stop, but the passion of his dreams pushed him forward. Like a hero, Junior continued, determined to do well and build a greater future for himself. An example that showed Junior’s passion for education and desire to achieve his goals was when he threw an old geometry textbook at his teacher: “My school and my tribe are so poor and sad that we have to study from the same dang books our parents studied from. That is absolutely the saddest thing in the world…My hopes and dreams floated up in a mushroom cloud” (Alexie, 31). Junior clearly understood his disadvantaged education and he was very upset about it. He longed for a better education. Junior was passionate about education, because it would allow him to achieve his goals and break the depressing pattern he was trapped in. Bravery and determination are caused by passion, and heroes are very passionate about their actions. Passion clearly drove Junior when he walked to school, since he said, “Getting to school was always an adventure…Three times I had to walk all the way home. Twenty-two miles. I got blisters each time” (Alexie, 87). Putting all of this effort into simply going to school, Junior must have had
Picture yourself in a town where you are underprivileged and sometimes miss a meal. In the novel, “The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian,” Sherman Alexie wrote the book to show hardships that Native Americans face today. Alexie shows us hardships such as poverty, alcoholism and education. In the novel, Junior goes against the odds to go to an all white school to get a better education to have a better life
When a native author Greg Sams said that the reservations are just “red ghettos”, the author David disagree with that. He thinks there must be something else beyond that point. After his grandfather died, he somehow changed his mind. Because he could not think anything e...
Growing up on a reservation where failing was welcomed and even somewhat encouraged, Alexie was pressured to conform to the stereotype and be just another average Indian. Instead, he refused to listen to anyone telling him how to act, and pursued his own interests in reading and writing at a young age. He looks back on his childhood, explaining about himself, “If he'd been anything but an Indian boy living on the reservation, he might have been called a prodigy. But he is an Indian boy living on the reservation and is simply an oddity” (17). Alexie compares the life and treatment of an Indian to life as a more privileged child. This side-by-side comparison furthers his point that
Establishing an identity has been called one of the most important milestones of adolescent development (Ruffin, 2009). Additionally, a central part of identity development includes ethnic identity (ACT for Youth, 2002). While some teens search for cultural identity within a smaller community, others are trying to find their place in the majority culture. (Bucher and Hinton, 2010)The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian chronicles Junior’s journey to discovery of self. As with many developing teens, he finds himself spanning multiple identities and trying to figure out where he belongs. “Traveling between Reardan and Wellpinit, between the little white town and the reservation, I always felt like a stranger. I was half Indian in one place and half white in the other” (p.118). On the reservation, he was shunned for leaving to go to a white school. At Reardon, the only other Indian was the school mascot, leaving Junior to question his decision to attend school he felt he didn’t deserve. Teens grappling with bicultural identities can relate to Junior’s questions of belonging. Not only is Junior dealing with the struggle between white vs. Indian identities, but with smaller peer group identities as well. In Wellpinit, Junior is th...
“The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian” is a humorous and intuitive novel written by Sherman Alexie. The reader gets an insight into the everyday life of a fourteen year old hydrocephalic Indian boy named Arnold Spirit, also referred to as Junior Spirit. He is living on the Spokane Indian reservation and is seen as an outcast by all the other Indians, due to his medical condition. Against all odds Arnold expands his hope, leaves his school on the reservation and faces new obstacles to obtain a more promising future at a school off the reservation. The novel is told through Arnold’s voice, thoughts, actions and experiences. Alexie incorporates one point of view, different themes and settings, such as poverty, friendship, Spokane and Reardan within Arnold’s journey to illustrate the different hardships he must overcome to gain a higher education.
His father will sometimes forget about Junior and never show up to give him a ride home. Junior is then forced to walk or hitchhike all the way back to the reservation. His father also constantly spends all of his money on alcohol, even during the holidays, “.Dad did what he always does when we don’t have enough money. He took what little money we did have and ran away to get drunk” (Alexie 150). Junior’s unfortunate understanding of alcoholism makes him see the world as an unfair place.
The theme of expectations and hope go hand in hand. Hope is another important element that sparks determination and drive. Hope is a feeling that overpowers all other feelings. No matter how tough life gets or situations become, all that is needed is a tiny amount of hope. As long as there is hope, these is motivation to keep trying and to keep pushing through. Once that hope is lost and people feel like there is no chance that they will succeed, they stop trying. This idea and theme of hope, or the lack of, is very prominent throughout the book. Junior, throughout the book, shows us how many Native Americans have lost hope. The driving force that keeps people pushing forward has gone out in many of these people. Junior shows the devastating effects of the loss of hope that exists in this community when Mr. P says “You're going to find more and more hope the farther and farther you walk away from the sad, sad, sad reservation” (43). This quote encompasses all of the devastating results that can be seen among reservation Indians. As the book shows, this lack of hope results in the poverty and substance abuse issues. When Junior says “But we reservation Indians don't get to realize our dreams. We don't get those chances. Or choices. We're just poor. That's all we are.” (13), he shows how there is no hope left on the reservation. People on the reservation feel like they don’t have the opportunities to thrive and make their
In more of an extreme case, after Junior finally overcame his fear of leaving the reservation for a new and more positive life, he was not treated fairly. In the beginning of his experience at Reardan he writes, “After all, I was a reservation Indian, and no matter how geeky or weak I appeared to be, I was still a potential killer” (Alexie 2007:63). This is a perfect example of how easily people believe things they hear. Junior was literally a weak fifteen year old that could never hurt a fly, yet people looked at him as a killer because that was a stereotype about Indians. This idea goes along with Johnson’s thoughts of symbols, “symbols go far beyond labeling things” and “Symbols are also what we use to feel connected to a reality outside ourselves” (Johnson 2008: 36).
With the obstacles that happen to Junior, it creates an emotional and traumatic impact on Junior as well as getting the readers hooked to turn the page and keep reading. To begin, in “The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian” Sherman Alexie describes a moment in Junior's life before he went to the white school. From comparing the death rates and even mentioning the deaths, Alexie shows an emotional impact on Junior from the deaths he has to go through. Alexie writes about how Junior being an Indian has impacted his life.
Throughout the beginning of the book, and into the middle, Junior is trying to establish his intrinsic values to this new community of his. Stereotypes and generalizations have become the easy way to justify the separation of races, classes, and genders. Creating these ideas about the cultures that are different than our own is a dangerous habit that must be broken by this generation so that our children can play in merriment without the fear of being misunderstood on a day-to-day basis. So as Adiche said in her TED talk, stories matter, and to only pay attention to specific stories of one’s life, is to overlook all of the other formative experiences of life. “The problem with stereotypes is not that they are untrue, but that they are incomplete.