The Absolutely True Diary Of A Part Time Indian Essay

Adolescence is undoubtedly the hardest time of one’s life and during these years many face an abundance of pressure and want nothing more than to fit in with their peers. In Sherman Alexie’s novel The Absolutely True Diary of a Part – Time Indian, Junior is no exception to this. In addition to the stereotypical teenager issues that everybody faces, he deals with hydrocephalus, speech impediments that result in bullying, and discrimination against his culture. Throughout the novel Junior is constantly conflicted between staying true to his roots by living out reservation life, and breaking the cycle of poverty by doing what few others dare to and leave the reservation. Junior manages to escape from the cycle of “reservation life” due to both

external factors as well as internal strength in which many others do not have the bravery to show.
Junior has lived on the reservation for his whole life and has seen the cycle of poverty and the day-to-day reservation life take its’ toll on many. From the time that Junior was born he has been different from others and has always viewed it as nothing other than negative. Junior has however regarded life on the reservation in a negative way as well as of late. These emotions do not truly show through until Junior is assigned his Geometry book at school and opens it to see his mother’s name written inside. He immediately becomes overwhelmed with emotions; disbelief, anger, pity, and sadness. Coming to the realization that the reservation is far too poor to even purchase a new set of textbooks after at least thirty years causes Junior to reach his breaking point. He knows that if he is going to thrive as an individual, the reservation is no longer the best possible place for him to be.
The decision to move to school in Reardan is influenced by both the internal strength Junior possesses to be able to make such a decision as well as Mr.

P, Junior’s teacher on the reservation, advising him to leave before the reservation takes whatever hope he still has. Junior listens to Mr. P’s advice to leave and reflects on what his loved ones could have amounted to should someone had paid attention to their dreams. Junior then decides that he does not want to look back on his life and think “what if?” but rather deal with the pushback and negativity now and be able to look back and think “remember when?”. Junior has seen his sister Mary have the sparkle of hope gradually fade from her eyes and fall into a state of apathy, along with everybody else on the reservation and by means of internal strength in which he himself was unaware he possesses, he decides that he must break free of the fatal cycle.
Shortly after settling into school in Reardan, Junior comes to notice the vast contrast between getting an education in a “white town” compared to the reservation. One of the largest variations between the two is that unlike his peers on the reservation, Junior’s new classmates have nothing but hopes and aspirations. Though he faces extreme pushback at home on the reservation for “trying to be white”, his new friends at Reardan help to keep him from backing out, along with his own unwavering

willpower.
One of, if not the single largest external factor that has contributed to Junior’s escaping reservation life is all of the death that he has experienced in his short life, that of forty-two people to be exact. The overwhelming majority of these deaths were due to alcohol related tragedies and were often rooted to alcoholism, a common issue on the reservation as well as on many other reservations throughout the United States and Canada.
Alcoholism is a recurring issue on many First Nations reservations throughout the United States and Canada. A study published by the Indian Health services in the United States found that the rate of alcoholism in Native Americans is six times the national average. In some of the reservations studied in the United States, it was discovered that one in four children suffered a form of fetal alcohol syndrome due to their mother’s excessive drinking while pregnant.[1] A report released in 2008 by the Federal Centers for Disease Control found that just under twelve percent of deaths of Native Americans were alcohol related, compared to the general American population’s three percent. This study also identified that of these deaths, sixty six percent were under the age of fifty, seven percent were under the age of twenty, and over sixty eight percent of all recorded alcohol related deaths were of men. [2]
Junior has grown up surrounded by death and living in constant fear that the next time someone dies, it will be one of his loved ones. He is so paranoid about death that when his father is late to pick Junior up at school after learning of his sister’s death, he worries that his father may be dead too. Watching others fall victim to the lethal cycle of apathy, and eventually alcoholism, drives Junior to stray from the negatively conotated ‘Indian norm’ and rather take his future into his own hands and pave the way for future people that find themselves in situations similar to that of his own.
The largest way in which Junior manages to overcome the cycle of reservation life is by internal means. Throughout his whole ordeal of switching schools and being referred to as a traitor, an outsider, and inferior, Junior manages to always stay true to himself and does not let any outside opinions sway that of his own. A major outlet for Junior that has acted as such for quite some time is his drawing. For him, drawing acts as a way to calmly relieve stress, free his mind, and be able to see things more clearly. Junior is fiercely independent and though he has always regarded it negatively, his being rather introverted throughout his childhood has served him well in that he has all of the necessary skills for dealing with things primarily internally. Junior has proven that he is able to cope with even the hardest of things alone, such as the passing of his grandmother and sister. Junior may not be able to see it himself but even in the face of discrimination, including from his own people, he was able to persevere through it all in order to reach his end goal. Though he may have doubted himself a multitude of times throughout the ordeal, his hopes and aspirations were never shaken or diminished in his own eyes. This allowed him to stay focused on his future and fight for what he truly wanted, a battle he ended up prevailing in.
Though the novel ends without a definitive outcome to Junior’s ongoing battle against stereotypes, it appears as though Junior is to successfully escape reservation life and the labels that go along with it. Junior is able to overcome what is typically expected of an Indian due to an amalgamation of both external and internal factors. The true root of Junior’s assumed end success is his unwavering internal strength in the face of hardship. Junior went through the hardest phase of his life for the most part alone, with nobody that he felt one hundred percent comfortable talking about everything with. This allowed him to resort to his own means and become fiercely independent and though he made new friends at his new school, the only person he ever truly relied on was himself.