Sherman Alexie Humor

Humor is something we see on a daily basis as humans; people use humor mostly to make other people laugh and smile, however in “The Absolute True Diary of a Part-Time Indian”, Sherman Alexie’s use of dark humor based on covering pain and making it bearable for his main character Junior. In this novel Sherman Alexie uses dark humor through the drawings of his main character and with literary techniques in order to make very serious depressing situations into bearable moments which everyone can understand. One of the most meaningful drawing in this novel is the drawing of Junior himself. The obvious factor of Junior considering himself to be abnormal is very prominent in this drawing (p.5) Instead of his body parts being normal, they’re not

He even draws his unbalanced glasses because his brain damage left him “nearsighted in one eye and farsighted in the other”. He shows how his hands and feet are huge compared to his paper thin body. In his drawing you can see the amount of pain Junior goes through for being who he is, he’s accepted how he looks however he doesn’t want to; Junior uses hyperbole in his drawings to exaggerate how disproportional he is. He believes himself to be worthless with no value and that’s how he draws himself. The text used in the drawing of him speaking says “Th-th-the RAIN in THPAIN…” (p.5) which shows that he has a speech problem. Even though he’s very intelligent, when he presents himself as whom he is, someone who has a speech problem it seems as if he’s not very intelligent. Due to the way the other people on the reservation see him and bully him, it forces him to degrade himself. The only way for him to release his pain is through

He explains that is was not only a way to hide pain but also a way for readers to understand Junior’s life, in order to understand Junior. Junior doesn’t feel or get much importance until he goes to Reardan High. Being a Native American already lowers self-worth with the way society sees them. Then being a Native American with disabilities adds more oppression and Junior simply doesn’t feel asl if he’s heard. “So I draw because I want to talk to the world. And I want the world to pay attention to me” (p.6). This is described with a drawing of Junior shouting out “LOVE ME” three times and images of a poetry book, a bunny and an expensive necklace symbolizing the only rich brown people Junior believes there are. He’s calling out for them hoping to be a rich artist. He wants to be rich after suffering from being poor, that’s his