Arnold Spirit Jr. Character Analysis

Arnold Spirit Jr. is the social outcast in his world. He’s ignored, bullied, but still an intelligent teen who is unique, given the fact that he was born with more water in his brain. However, that didn’t stand in the way of Junior since he was able to achieve a dream which is a shift in his life that brought joy. Many obstacles such as deaths of family and poverty may have brought him down, but he came back up stronger. While experiencing many changes throughout the book, Arnold Spirit Jr. reshapes the way people looked at him on the reservation, and at his school, and while trying to find out where he belongs, which shows that the desire to fit in is human nature.

Junior didn’t get heaps of attention on the rez, but it switches when he decides to leave in search of hope which changes the reservation’s view of him.

When Penelope asks for his name, he gives two answer. It made him realize how different he was from the other white kids. Junior explains, ¨Well, every other Indian calls me Junior....I felt like two different people inside of one body. No, I felt like a magician slicing myself in half, with Junior living on the north side of the Spokane River and Arnold living on the south” (60-61).Sherman Alexie uses a simile to show that Junior is like a magician since he’s able to be two complete different people. He is Arnold in school, but Junior at home. It’s hard for him to please both people on the rez and at school. The Indians say he has become too white for home, but too Indian at Reardan. All he wishes is to fit in by being himself. Further more into staying at Reardan for an education, some of the people on the rez shuns Junior for his decision. He begins to notice the difference between the two areas, and how different he was from everyone else. “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. It was like being Indian was my job, but it was only a part-time job. And it didn't pay well” (118). Junior believes that he’s becoming less Indian on the reservation. It’s his job to be an Indian since he was born an Indian, but it’s part-time because he feels like an Indian at school. Junior doesn’t know where he stands since he is separated from both areas which gives him a sense of isolation. Though he may lust for a change of invisibility back home, Junior didn’t like this sort of attention from the rez.
“They call me an apple because they think I’m red on the outside and white on the inside.¨
¨Ah, so they think you’re a traitor?¨
¨Yep.¨ (132)
Everyone on the reservation identifies Junior as a traitor after he left the rez. He was usually invisible when the other Indians saw him, but now they give Junior a harder time by bullying him. Now it’s more difficult for him to become a part of the crowd. Sherman compares Arnold to an apple to show how he changes by becoming white on the inside. Since it wasn’t the kind of change Junior wanted from the Indians, he still had the hunger to belong.

Junior goes from a lonely Indian boy in a white high school to having a numerous amount of friends by his side.

During the first weeks of his transfer to Reardan, everyone looked at him like he was an alien. Maybe it was because of his ¨out of proportion body size¨ or maybe it was because he was the only Indian there. “I can tell you that I went from being a small target in Wellpinit to being a larger target in Reardan…. There were a few of those Reardan boys, the big jocks, who paid special attention to me. None of those guys punched me or got violent….So mostly they called me names. Lots of names” (63). The first sentence states that Junior was a bigger target since he was the only Indian boy at Reardan, not including the school’s mascot. The Indian mascot of Reardan represents the school, but the school is rarely filled with Indians. It’s filled with white students. Almost all of the kids at Reardan ignores him which makes Junior feel lower than he thought he was on the rez. Shortly after gaining respect from Roger and the other basketball players, Junior meets a bookworm, Gordy. Little did he know that they both share a few common

similarities.
“Weird people still get banished.¨
¨You mean weird people like me,¨ I said.
¨And me,¨ Gordy said.
¨All right, then,¨ I said. ¨So we have a tribe of two.” (132)
There is a larger impact when Junior says he has a tribe with Gordy because it shows how he’s slowly finding out where he fits. Gordy opens Junior’s eyes by telling him that he’s not alone. After catching Penelope’s heart by being caring, the other kids’ eyes opened to see that Junior isn’t so lousy. ¨’I didn’t realize you still went to this school, Mr. Spirit….¨ They all knew my family had been living inside a grief-storm....He stood with his textbook and dropped it.... Penelope stood and dropped her textbook. And then Roger... It all gave me hope¨ (175-176). Referring back to the last sentence of the quote, it shows that it had the most influence because it shows that he found hope when people started to accept him as a friend, as one of their own, no matter what race. All his classmates, all his friends, stood by Junior’s side. He was fitting in.

Change triggers throughout Arnold’s life which help him to find out where he belongs. A person that surprising helps him recognize that the rez has no hope, is a teacher who has a sad appearance, Mr. P. “‘You’ve been fighting since you were born....You’re going to find more and more hope the farther and farther you walk away from this sad, sad, sad reservation’” (43). Mr. P implies that Junior is a fighter, and is the one who ignites the spark that encourages him to leave the rez. Junior’s devotion towards fitting in starts in the rez, but when he realizes no one pays attention to him, but Rowdy, he leaves for Reardan for more hope. After losing three members of his family, he understands that he’s one of many people who feels alone. Junior has no regrets of leaving the reservation because he wanted to be filled with happiness. “I realized that, sure, I was a Spokane Indian. I belonged to that tribe. But I also belonged to the tribe of American immigrants…. of basketball players… of bookworms…It was a huge realization. And that’s when I knew that I was going to be okay” (217). As Junior manages to fit in, everyone welcomes him as being another kid, and not some ¨weirdo.¨ This helps him accept that he’s fine with not being apart of one tribe, but several tribes. He didn’t need to be only a part of the Indians or the whites, he could be in both. Alexie uses a pattern during this part of the book, which is ¨And to the tribe of...¨ He shows that Arnold Spirit Jr. belongs. Finally, Rowdy accepts Junior once more, and respects his choice. “‘Hardly anybody on this rez is nomadic. Except for you. You're the nomadic one…. I always knew you were going to leave us behind and travel the world. I had this dream...You were standing on the Great Wall of China. You looked happy. And I was happy for you’” (229).The phrase that has the most impact is when Rowdy calls Junior a nomadic Indian. Not only does this show Rowdy’s realization, but how also Junior was able to fit in after leaving the rez. At Reardan, he was capable of being the real him, and the other kids liked Junior for being himself, which led to him fitting in.

As people tried to put Junior down, he stood strong. Though he views himself as a weak boy, needing a bodyguard, he was actually a warrior. He fought the seizures, the bullies, and the harsh words which lead to victory. The Indians back home treated him as a criminal, however that didn’t last forever. The rez stopped picking on Junior after death took over his family members since he was already in pain. Even through the stumbling blocks of life, he was able to reshape the rez’s and Reardan’s point of views. After searching with many struggles, Junior established that he’s no longer a social outcast who couldn’t fit in. He is no longer a “weirdo.” Junior belongs.