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Essay on the first 5 chapters of the absolute true diary of a part time indian
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Where is hope? What is hope? Who can have hope? Trying to solve these questions, Sherman Alexie’s book, The Absolutely True Diary o f a Part-Time Indian investigates the journey of a budding 14 year-old cartoonist named Junior, or Arnold Spirit. Being a poor, Indian living on a reservation, that suffers from hydrocephalus, Junior does not get the liberty of having the easiest life. He is picked on by everybody other than his best friend Rowdy, “the toughest kid on the rez. [] Long and lean and strong like a snake” (Alexie, 15). Junior, determined to receive a better education and life despite the culture of failure he was born into, decides to leave the rez to attend an all-white school in the neighbouring town, the only Indian present there,
Indian culture has been disappearing for centuries since the Native Americans were forced to migrate from their original homes. In the book, The Absolutely True Diary of A Part-Time Indian, an Indian boy displays how to escape the poverty of his Indian Reservation by going to a wealthy white school, as well as keeping his Indian Culture alive when living on the reservation. The Native American boy Arnold is able to show toughness, courageousness and the capability to overcome obstacles, by illustrating comics and playing basketball. For Arnold, drawing comics and playing basketball is a way to build his character and self-esteem. Without the freedom in writing comics and the self-confidence builder in playing basketball, Arnold would act
Sherman Alexie illustrates through the short story, “The Joy of Reading and Writing: Superman and Me,” how he developed the same reading and writing skills taught in a classroom solely from a Superman comic book. Alexie’s situation was unique from not only non-Indians but Indians as well. Alexie’s family was not privileged, which was the case for most of the people who lived on the Indian reservation. They, Indians, had access to very limited resources which ceased any aspirations they had at being successful. Alexie, as a young Indian boy, was not supposed to be educated by the societal norms expressed of his era. However, Alexie refused to fall victim to a stereotypical uneducated Indian boy. As a product of an Indian reservation, Sherman Alexie informs his audience, mostly dedicated to Indian children that he did not fail simply because of the joy he had for reading and writing.
The author, Sherman Alexie, is extremely effective through his use of ethos and ethical appeals. By sharing his own story of a sad, poor, indian boy, simply turning into something great. He establishes his authority and character to the audiences someone the reader can trust. “A little indian boy teaches himself to read at an early age and advances quickly…If he’d been anything but an Indian boy living in the reservations, he might have been called a prodigy.” Alexie mentions these two different ideas to show that he did have struggles and also to give the audience a chance to connect with his struggles and hopefully follow the same journey in becoming something great. By displaying his complications and struggles in life with stereotypical facts, Alexie is effective as the speaker because he has lived the live of the intended primary audience he is trying to encourage which would be young Indian
Adjusting to another culture is a difficult concept, especially for children in their school classrooms. In Sherman Alexie’s, “Indian Education,” he discusses the different stages of a Native Americans childhood compared to his white counterparts. He is describing the schooling of a child, Victor, in an American Indian reservation, grade by grade. He uses a few different examples of satire and irony, in which could be viewed in completely different ways, expressing different feelings to the reader. Racism and bullying are both present throughout this essay between Indians and Americans. The Indian Americans have the stereotype of being unsuccessful and always being those that are left behind. Through Alexie’s negativity and humor in his essay, it is evident that he faces many issues and is very frustrated growing up as an American Indian. Growing up, Alexie faces discrimination from white people, who he portrays as evil in every way, to show that his childhood was filled with anger, fear, and sorrow.
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
Hope is essential to survival which is described in the novels Long Way Gone by Ishmael Beah and Sold by Patricia McCormick. The novel Long Way Gone is a true story about Ishmael Beah. Ishmael became a forced child soldier during the civil war in Sierra Leone. His village was attacked when he was only 12 years of age. Ishmael, his brother, and his friends sauntered from village to village trying to get the daily essentials such as food and shelter. Every day was a struggle for surviving. He would think about his family and hope those days would come back to him. The novel Sold from Patricia McCormick is about a Nepali girl named Lakshmi that was sold into slavery at the age of 12. Lakshmi’s stepfather tells her to take the job in the city to
One can only achieve their dreams if they persevere because conquering obstacles strengthens one’s resolve. Junior decides to transfer from Wellpinit (a school on the reservation) to Reardan (an all white school outside of the reservation), only to prove that he can live up to his dream without giving up, unlike the other Indians on the reservation. This results in him losing his only best friend and facing many conflicts. Junior overcomes many of the obstacles that he faces throughout his journey by persevering through hardships, which help make him stronger. In the novel, Junior perseveres in spite of overcoming many of the obstacles that he faces throughout his journey. Despite the sacrifices that he makes and the hardships and struggles
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
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.
In the sources used, the situations that are experienced seems like there is no hope to be found, only fear. Fear will protect us, we hope. Nevertheless, hope is everywhere no matter what. For World War II in The Diary of Anne Frank, Anne Frank is the secret annex’s hope. Anne Frank is a 13-year old girl that has the most hope of surviving the Nazi Invasion. All you can think is, “Ah, the Nazi’s are coming! Run for your lives!” That is what went through many minds during this time period, fear. Fear is a strong ally to have. You can worry all the time and no one will stop you. But, hope can be an even stronger ally, if you believe.
“Hope in the face of difficulty. Hope in the face of uncertainty. The audacity of hope! A belief in things not seen. A belief that there are better days ahead.” President Obama’s 2004 keynote speech gives a timeless message of hope that especially resonates with minorities who face an uncertain future. Similarly, in her novel Beloved, Toni Morrison develops the theme that hope in the face of forced dehumanization, through the relationship between darkness and light, gives the oppressed a purpose and the ability to overcome and thrive despite persecution.
The "Hope in the Unseen" by Ron Suskind sheds light on many controversial issues today such as racism, personal struggles but also gives other students like Cedric the determination to push forward], I feel like this book has a raw and uncut perspective of growing up in a culture of poverty and succeeding despite this. In the beginning the whole thing felt very artificial and cliché to me. It felt like any other story about growing up in poverty. The fact that poverty has become so cliche makes this book all the more relevant. If you don't really understand what it’s like to go through what Cedric went through like financially struggling, living in a single parent home,with a violent community, and having a parent imprisoned. it’s much harder to empathize It’s much easier to ignore his culture
Junior decides he has to leave his home reservation and go somewhere where he can be successful and get a good education. Junior decides to leave the reservation and go to Reardan in search for a better life. As Mr P says on page 43, “Son, you're going to find more and more hope the farther and farther you walk away from this sad, sad, sad reservation.” He explains that there is no reason for Junior to keep living on the reservation when he has a chance to move somewhere else and start a new life. His reservation is full of drunks and bullies so if Junior wanted to become who he dreams to be. So he leaves the reservation because nothing there will help him in life. Another example of Junior leaving his reservation in order to find hope is on
One of his cartoons is of him, with one half of him looking the way he does currently, and the other half looking the way he would look like if he had more money, or as he thinks of it, if he were white. (Please refer to appendix b.) The character traits written around the drawing help Junior realise that he has good character traits within him, he just needs to look into the part of himself he thinks of as white to find them. At one point in the book Junior is called an apple, red on the outside and white on the inside. This is what he needs to learn about himself; he has the characteristics he thinks of as white inside him. The drawing itself shows him that to be what he wants, he may have to be what the title says, a part-time Indian. Finally, the jokes he makes with how he labels this drawing show that he has already started to find hope by using humor. For example, on the side of him he labels as Indian he isn’t wearing a watch, and he wrote “it's skin-thirty!” (Alexi, page 57) Junior finding hope within him by using his cartoons is significant because it drives him to break the family norm of not having a future, and just ending up back on the
Poetry can be descriptive into one’s own state of mind or point of view. Poetry describes situations, a person, a place or a thing. Poetry can interpret, create emotion, have hidden, indifferent, or symbolic meanings. Generally this is done in a rhythmic pattern. Poetry is part of literature and a form of language across cultures. Poetry can be dark and mysterious or evoke wonderment and love, it can also be used to explain the author’s frustration of a situation that cannot be changed. Like in Sherman Alexis poem “on an Amtrak from Boston to New York”. Sherman Alexie, a Native American, activist, and author used his poem as his point of view. In this poem the speaker’s state of mind depicts resentment, prejudice and muted aggressiveness.