Indian Outcasts

Friendship Acting Upon Social Status

According to the University of Wisconsin Press, as of 1492, there were an estimated high of 112 million Indians living in the “United States.” To this day there are only about 5.2 million. Junior is a young boy who lives on an indian reservation. Junior decides to transfer to a white school in an attempt to preserve his culture. He has a very rough time with family and friends along his journey. In The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie, friendships are broken and uplifted, outcasts are treated poorly, yet both these play a large role in the plot of the novel.

There is one thing that everybody, no matter who you are, can relate to friendship. It is one of the most important aspects

Junior is considered an outcast no matter where he is, “I went from being a small target in Wellpinit to being a larger target in Reardan” (63). Being an outcast is never a pleasant situation to be in. An outcast is looked down upon and thought lesser than everyone else. Alexie using the word “target”, to give the reader a perspective of how he’s treated. Even though Junior lives in a small Indian reservation, he is still treated like an untouchable throughout the rez. Consequently, the reader can take that, if Junior is being disrespected in this way within his homeland, it's unimaginable to how he’s treated in

It was a huge realization” (217). Junior realizes who he is at this moment. He tells the reader how he is an outcast because lack of money along with being friendless. We can see that these two are together because each one acts on the other. If someone doesn't have friends, they would be considered an outcast. Half way through the novel, Junior’s Grandma, sister, and family friend (Eugene) all die from results of alcohol. All the deaths of his loved ones lead to him missing many days of school. Once he comes back his teacher verbally insults him, and his whole class protests against her, “‘Oh, class,’ she said. ‘We have a special guest today. It’s Arnold Spirit. I didn’t realize you still want to this school’… It was Gordy who defended me… Then all of my classmates walked out of the room” (175). At this moment, the reader is in a fully understanding of how Junior is perceived throughout the school. He is no longer an outcast, he has friends, people have his back in any situation. Both being an outcast and friendship are dependent variables. They both are associated with each other. The two act on one another throughout the novel. Having friends lessens other people’s viewpoint from them being an outcast, and visa