Junior Finding Hope

Junior Finding Hope in The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian

Webster's dictionary defines hope as “to want something to happen or be true and to think that it could happen or be true.” The book “The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian” by Sherman Alexie is about a boy named Junior who lives on an Indian reservation. He is very poor and is the town punching bag. He gets beat up everyday and he he had medical problems since birth. Juniors character teaches us that you have to go out of your comfort zone in order to find hope and friends.
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. After Junior throws a book at Mr P’s face during school, Mr P visits Junior at home to talk to him. 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 page 43 when Mr P says “you've been fighting since you were born. You fought off that brain surgery. You fought off those seizures. You fought off all those drunks and addicts. You kept your hope. And now, you have to take your hope and go somewhere where other people have hope.” Mr P knows what Junior has been through and it is comfortable to stay where you've always lived and accept who you were born as, but Mr P wants Junior to get out of his comfort zone and leave the reservation to go somewhere where he can become someone that nobody on his reservation will ever become.
Junior doesn't have many friends on the reservation so he hopes to get more friends and Reardan.

During Juniors move to Reardan, Junior made some friends that become important in his teen life. An important moment in the first stages of Juniors move is on page 108 when Junior hears Penelope throwing up in the girls bathroom at school, he stays to wait for her outside the bathroom. She eventually comes out and is embarrassed, but Junior knows she is anorexic and is going through hard times, so he says “don't give up Penelope.” That’s all it took for her to start crying and confessing all her problems to Junior. After that, they become very close friends and eventually start dating. Junior comforts Penelope and he finally uses his social skills to communicate with others and it ends up working out very well for him. Junior is the first person that actually worries about Penelope. He knows she is extremely popular, but he cares for everyone and wants her to be normal, not anorexic. Another great example of Junior making friends during his moe is on page 43, it isn’t the best way to make a friend, but it worked. Roger walked up to Junior on one of the first days of schools and said “did you know that Indians are living proof that niggers f*** buffalo?” Junior punched Roger in the face after he said that. Junior is the only person to stick up for themselves to Roger, because of that Roger gained respect for Junior and he ended up liking Junior. They played on the same basketball team and hung out a lot. If Junior would've never stuck up for himself, they probably wouldn't have ever became friends. Roger has never been treated as an average classmate, so when Junior punched him, it made him feel like one and he understood what it was like. So he made sure that Junior was one person that he could hang out with and he knows that Junior could always have his back. Junior being brave and sticking up for himself became a huge factor in making friends during his move to

Reardan.
Junior has to leave his Indian reservation and take his hope where other people have hope. In order to find hope, Junior goes to an all white school called Reardan. There he makes friends and becomes someone that he always dreamt of becoming. Hope means to want something to happen or be true and think that it could happen or be true. This story should influence us all to not be afraid and go do something with our lives.