The novel The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, by Sherman Alexie has evidence of being a bildungsroman as Junior undergoes a great coming of age. His perspectives of the places around him evolve dramatically as the novel progresses. Throughout his journey, he endures tough losses of loved ones but is supported by the love of his friends and family. His daunting pursuit of hope leads him to the white community of Reardan where he learns that each community has flaws regardless of social economic standing. He is able to learn from his experiences in the novel, allowing him to develop as a person and discover his true identity. Throughout most of the novel Junior sees the reservation as a depressing land of broken dreams. He even goes …show more content…
He originally calls the reservation an isolated area distant from importance and happiness. He recalls a moment where he and Rowdy gaze at the reservation atop a tremendous pine, “We could see our entire world. And our entire world, at that moment, was green golden and perfect” (Alexie 226). Junior has such a good memory of seeing the perfection of the reservation because in the memory, he is with his best friend. It took great courage and trust for the two of them to climb that tree and neither of them would have climbed it if they were by themselves. This memory shows the strength of the bond that Junior has with Rowdy. Junior remembers the times when he was the most courageous, “I don’t know if anybody else has ever climbed that tree. I look at it now, years later, and I can’t believe we did it. And I can’t believe I survived my first year at Reardan” (Alexie 226). Junior remembers climbing the tree when reminiscing about his first year at Reardan. Both acts take immense courage but also reward him. He is able to find the good in places and people wherever he goes and takes that good and uses it for his advantage. When Rowdy comes back to Junior in the summer, he comes with insight for his friend, “the thing is, I don’t think Indians are nomadic anymore. Most Indians anyway… Hardly anybody on this rez is nomadic. Except for you. You’re the nomadic one” (Alexie 229). Rowdy relates Junior’s recent actions to those of the old, traditional Indian who thrived when they could still move around “in search of food water and grazing the land” (Alexie 229). When Indians were forced onto reservations, their culture and spirit was damaged. By becoming nomadic, Junior is stepping up for his dreams. He is taking the best of what he finds and uses it in order to help him attain his
Encountering struggles in life defines one’s character and speaks volumes about their strength, ambition, and flexibility. Through struggles, sacrifice, and tragedy, Junior in The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, by Sherman Alexie, adapts to survive difficult situations and faces his problems head-on. As he makes life changing decisions, adapts to an unfamiliar culture, and finds himself amongst misery and heartbreak, Junior demonstrates resilience to overcome adversity and struggles.
“But we reservation Indians don’t get to realize our dreams. We don’t get those chances.” (p. 13) In The Absolutely True Diary of A Part Time Indian, by Sherman Alexie, Junior, the narrator, is an Indian teenage boy living on a reservation, where no one's dreams or ideas are heard. The Indians on the reservation feel hopeless because they are isolated and disenfranchised. Junior learns how to cope with his hopelessness and breaks through the hopeless reservation life to find his dreams. Examining his journey provides important examples for the reader.
Alexie, Sherman. The absolutely true diary of a part-time Indian. Groningen [etc.: Noordhoff, 2011. Print.
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
Picture yourself in a town where you are underprivileged and sometimes miss a meal. In the novel, “The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian,” Sherman Alexie wrote the book to show hardships that Native Americans face today. Alexie shows us hardships such as poverty, alcoholism and education. In the novel, Junior goes against the odds to go to an all white school to get a better education to have a better life
Establishing an identity has been called one of the most important milestones of adolescent development (Ruffin, 2009). Additionally, a central part of identity development includes ethnic identity (ACT for Youth, 2002). While some teens search for cultural identity within a smaller community, others are trying to find their place in the majority culture. (Bucher and Hinton, 2010)The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian chronicles Junior’s journey to discovery of self. As with many developing teens, he finds himself spanning multiple identities and trying to figure out where he belongs. “Traveling between Reardan and Wellpinit, between the little white town and the reservation, I always felt like a stranger. I was half Indian in one place and half white in the other” (p.118). On the reservation, he was shunned for leaving to go to a white school. At Reardon, the only other Indian was the school mascot, leaving Junior to question his decision to attend school he felt he didn’t deserve. Teens grappling with bicultural identities can relate to Junior’s questions of belonging. Not only is Junior dealing with the struggle between white vs. Indian identities, but with smaller peer group identities as well. In Wellpinit, Junior is th...
“I hate you, YOU SUCK, you white lover!”- rowdy. These show that Jr was disowned by his tribe and his best friend because he and rowdy were best friends, but after Jr told rowdy that he is transferring to redardan he got punched and rowdy was not in “touch” with Jr after that till basketball. For Jr to get jumped on Halloween means something bad had to happen and betraying a tribe is very bad. Both of these show that Jr was disowned because nobody from any tribe could do this for no reason.When Jr gets to the new school he gets shamed for being at a white school and being Indian.The teachers treat him different than the others in the class. “They stared at me like I was Bigfoot or a UFO”-Jr, this here shows that people are not used to seeing Indians.The teachers treating Jr different is showing as if he doesn't matter as much as the others in the class. On Jr’s first day when all the kids first saw him, they looked at him like bigfoot or a UFO is not a good thing because that means they are scared and shaming him. Both of these show that he is being shamed by the white kids
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
The theme of expectations and hope go hand in hand. Hope is another important element that sparks determination and drive. Hope is a feeling that overpowers all other feelings. No matter how tough life gets or situations become, all that is needed is a tiny amount of hope. As long as there is hope, these is motivation to keep trying and to keep pushing through. Once that hope is lost and people feel like there is no chance that they will succeed, they stop trying. This idea and theme of hope, or the lack of, is very prominent throughout the book. Junior, throughout the book, shows us how many Native Americans have lost hope. The driving force that keeps people pushing forward has gone out in many of these people. Junior shows the devastating effects of the loss of hope that exists in this community when Mr. P says “You're going to find more and more hope the farther and farther you walk away from the sad, sad, sad reservation” (43). This quote encompasses all of the devastating results that can be seen among reservation Indians. As the book shows, this lack of hope results in the poverty and substance abuse issues. When Junior says “But we reservation Indians don't get to realize our dreams. We don't get those chances. Or choices. We're just poor. That's all we are.” (13), he shows how there is no hope left on the reservation. People on the reservation feel like they don’t have the opportunities to thrive and make their
With the obstacles that happen to Junior, it creates an emotional and traumatic impact on Junior as well as getting the readers hooked to turn the page and keep reading. To begin, in “The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian” Sherman Alexie describes a moment in Junior's life before he went to the white school. From comparing the death rates and even mentioning the deaths, Alexie shows an emotional impact on Junior from the deaths he has to go through. Alexie writes about how Junior being an Indian has impacted his life.
His father will sometimes forget about Junior and never show up to give him a ride home. Junior is then forced to walk or hitchhike all the way back to the reservation. His father also constantly spends all of his money on alcohol, even during the holidays, “.Dad did what he always does when we don’t have enough money. He took what little money we did have and ran away to get drunk” (Alexie 150). Junior’s unfortunate understanding of alcoholism makes him see the world as an unfair place.
Can you imagine growing up on a reservation full of people with no hope? The character Arnold in the book The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie did. In the beginning of the book, Arnold was a hopeless Native American living on a hopeless reservation. In the middle of the book, Arnold leaves the reservation and finds out that his sister left too. By the end of the book, Arnold experiences a lot of deaths of people who mean a lot to him but he still found hope. Arnold becomes a warrior for leaving the reservation and going to Reardan.
In the book The Absolutely True Diary Of A Part Time Indian by Sherman Alexie, Junior is the narrator of the book. He is Native American and lives on the “rez” with his mom, dad and sister. At the beginning of the book his sister runs away. His sister was a role model for Junior so when she ran away it made life harder on Junior. One day in school Junior realized how deprived his school is on the rez. In anger he threw his text book at his teacher. He expected the teacher to scold him but instead his teacher, Mr. P told him about a white public school called Rearden. Junior decided to go there so he could get a better education. When Junior asked his best friend Rowdy to go to Rearden with him Rowdy refused, and they got in a big fight. A Maxim
When a native author Greg Sams said that the reservations are just “red ghettos”, the author David disagree with that. He thinks there must be something else beyond that point. After his grandfather died, he somehow changed his mind. Because he could not think anything e...
Throughout the beginning of the book, and into the middle, Junior is trying to establish his intrinsic values to this new community of his. Stereotypes and generalizations have become the easy way to justify the separation of races, classes, and genders. Creating these ideas about the cultures that are different than our own is a dangerous habit that must be broken by this generation so that our children can play in merriment without the fear of being misunderstood on a day-to-day basis. So as Adiche said in her TED talk, stories matter, and to only pay attention to specific stories of one’s life, is to overlook all of the other formative experiences of life. “The problem with stereotypes is not that they are untrue, but that they are incomplete.