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Absolutely True Diary Of A Part Time Indian Essay

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In the book, The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie, there is a theme of Arnold grappling with his racial identity. He goes to a “white” school, but he lives on a Native American reservation, so there is conflict between both races for him. Although he often voices his negative feelings about being Native American, deep down Arnold loves being Native American, because he knows it’s not the only thing that defines him, he loves the togetherness of his tribe, and his struggles as a Native American have made him stronger. Arnold knows that being Native American isn’t the only thing that determines his life. He tells Mrs. Jeremy, “I used to think the world was broken down by tribes. By black and white. By Indian and white. But I know that isn’t true...” (176). This is truly a turning point in the novel when he is completely sure that being Native American isn’t the only thing that determines …show more content…

At the beginning of the book, he tells the readers about his difficult journey to stay alive since he was born, saying, “I ended up having forty-two teeth ... the Indian Health Service funded major dental work only once a year, so I had to have all ten extra teeth pulled in one day ... Our white dentist believed that Indians only felt half as much pain as white people did, so he only gave us half the Novocain” (2). This unfortunate event happened because he is Native American, and made him tougher. Another instance of him becoming tougher because he is Native American is all the fights he has been in, and lost. Both of these things made him stronger, and gave him the push to go to a better school, which changed his life for the better. These instances also made it easier for him to stick with his new school, even after he was ostracized because he was Native American, because he was so

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(Silko, 177) To elaborate, the answer to his internalized struggle is how colonialism has in bred whites as the saviors to the savage Indians. Moreover, it has brought him to believe the lie that whites are there to save him and can not do any harm. Also, how he

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"I was Indian. I was Native. I was Indigenous. I was all of those things, and I was beginning to realize that it was a strength, not a weakness. It was something to be proud of, something that gave me strength and resilience in the face of all the terrible things that had happened to me."

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You know, Native peoples as hapless victims innocents in the struggle for the Americas” (pg 77, Truth About Stories). Thomas King added this because he wants readers

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Overcoming a challenge, not giving up, and not being afraid of change are a few themes demonstrated in The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian. Perhaps the most prominent theme derived from the novel is defying the odds, or in other words rising above the expectations of others. Junior Spirit exemplifies this theme throughout the entirety of the book. As Junior is an Indian, he almost expects that he will never leave the reservation, become an alcoholic, and live in poverty like the other Indians on the reservation—only if he sits around and does not endeavor to change his fate. When Junior shares the backstory of his parents, he says that his mother and father came from “poor people who came from poor people who came from poor people, all the way back to the very first poor people” (11).

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He goes on to show how different white men and Native Americans are; by how they collect food by hunting, where they choose to live is not in the same place for long periods, and although white men have everything they did not have the right to take away liberty.

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