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Absolutely True Diary Of A Part-Time Indian By Sherman Alexie

744 Words3 Pages

Two Different Worlds “Life is a constant struggle between being an individual and being a member of the community.” (Alexie 132). Junior is the protagonist in the Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian written by Sherman Alexie. Through his time living on the reservation, he has experienced many hardships. Junior has just made the biggest decision in his life by choosing to move schools. Throughout the book, Junior faces many challenges with his identity. Junior navigates his way through the challenges between living on the reservation and going to school in Reardan by playing basketball and drawing cartoons. Making a change like Junior did takes a lot of courage. Junior started out the year going to his school on the reservation, he soon …show more content…

Ever since Junior’s sister Mary had run away from the reservation with her new boyfriend, Junior’s family had been struggling. Nobody expected her to do that. When Rowdy found out that she fled, he blamed it all on Junior for putting too much pressure on her ever since he decided to move schools to try and better his life. But this was the time for Junior to make everything better. Being an Indian and the weakling who always gets picked on, this was his time to shine. He was on the varsity basketball team and this was the game that mattered the most, playing Wellpinit, but most importantly playing Rowdy. The whole game was a time of ups and downs, but Junior played the best game of his life that night. He proved to his family and old friends just how good he was. This really shows how changing one thing in your life can lead to many amazing opportunities. In conclusion, Junior used basketball and drawing as his escape from the challenges that he faced from the reservation and switching to a new school. It takes a lot of bravery for someone to make a decision like Junior did. But if you don’t make the changes that you need to, then you won’t get the results that you

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When Junior is trying out for the basketball team, he doesn’t know what will happen but is following his dream. While in “Superman and Me” Sherman Alexie says Indians do not follow their dreams because an Indian on the “rez” who is smart is very rare. Junior “almost didn’t try out for the Rearden basketball team” because he thought he “wasn’t good enough to make even the C squad” and “didn’t want to get cut from the team”. (Absolutely True Diary 135) Junior ended up trying out for the basketball team because his dad told him to follow his dreams.

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Junior is a young American Indian who had grown up on a reservation in the western United States. As he grew older, he realized that living on the reservation would lead him nowhere. His only chance of hope at a better life is to leave “the Rez”. Sherman Alexie perfectly captures the culture of an American Indian in his novel, “The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian”, by introducing white culture by sending Junior to Reardan High School. Junior’s experience in Reardan allows him to draw conclusions about his own culture and Alexie has surely done research on American Indian culture.

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In the beginning of the book, Junior says that living on the reservation has generations of Indians losing hope. They accept their lives as their ancestors did.. His parents couldn't follow their dreams because they didn't have a support system. Junior is the example of how one can break the path of the traditional life on the reservation if one has the motivation and a good support system. Junior  had the love and emotional support of his parents and was fortunate enough to have the opportunity to attend a prestigious  Prep school based on the suggestion of Mr. P, a teacher at the rez school.

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I Took the ball right out of [Rowdy’s] hands.” (192) This shows how Junior’s perseverance helps him overcome the obstacle of beating Rowdy. Furthermore, Junior perseverance also allows him to overcome poverty. After being in poverty for his whole life, Junior realizes that, “It sucks to be poor, and it sucks to feel that you somehow deserve to be poor,” and as he realizes this, he transfers schools to Reardan.

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Junior is from a poor Indian family. He has brain surgery when he was very little. One day after he finds there is no future in the reservation, he decides to go to a school in Reardan where is full of white children. After a year studies in Reardan “I realized that, sure I was a Spokane Indian, I belonged to that tribe … And to the tribe of basketball players.

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Junior is a young boy that lives on a indian reservation in the novel The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie. As a result of living on the reservation, Junior is forced to deal with all the horrible consequences such as poverty, drunks, and bullies on the reservation. First off Junior lives on the reservation and has to deal with how poor his family is and he has to help them deal with the poverty. In the beginning of the story Junior tells us about the struggles of being poor by explaining “empty refrigerator + empty stomach= poverty”(8). Sometimes Junior and his family have to go without eating a meal because they can not afford the food.

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It’s a school that consists of mostly white kids. He was a hard time fitting in at Reardan because he’s an Indian. The main theme is about Junior trying to fit in on the Indian Reservation, and at Reardan. Junior’s only friends at Reardan are Gordy, and Penelope. He mentions that “he felt like two different people inside one body.”

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570 Words | 3 Pages

Mr. P tells Junior that “You 're going to find more and more hope the farther and farther you walk away from this sad, sad, sad reservation.” (Alexie 63). Junior’s teacher knows that in order for Junior to find hope, he must isolate himself from his miserable reservation. He knows that Junior deserves better, and has fought too hard to lose hope, therefore he must take his hope and go somewhere where other people have hope. In order to do that, Junior must separate himself from all the horrors of the sad reservation by leaving.

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When Junior is talking to Randy about basketball, he holds himself to low standards, saying “I’m Junior varsity all the way” (Alexie 126), and then goes on to play varsity ball as a first-year student. Junior thought that he was not good enough to play varsity basketball, but he ended up defying his own expectations and going on to become a great basketball player, learning that he can defy the expectations that hold him back. Another example of how Junior defie’s other expectations is during the rematch between WellPint and Reardan, where Junior starts the game and Rowdy say’s “You guys must be desperate if you’re starting.” (Alexie 191) Junior then goes on to destroy Rowdy. Rowdy believed that Junior was a bad player and held his expectations low, but then Junior showed Rowdy up, and destroyed Rowdy’s expectations.

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Faced with many obstacles from poverty to racial stereotypes, Junior must override them if he is to make his life better than that of fellow Indians. Interestingly, rather than letting the obstacles hold him back Junior understands that his destiny is in his own hands and he must celebrate who he is even if it means fighting. In the end, we see a boy who have managed to overcome all hardships to get to the top, even if it means making tough choices such as changing schools, therefore is could be seen that race and stereotypes only made Junior

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708 Words | 3 Pages

After talking to his dad junior starts to attend Rearden High School, the high school that is 22 miles from the reservation in a white town. Rowdy

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563 Words | 3 Pages

In the novel, The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, by Sherman Alexie there are many themes and major flaws in society that get pointed out. One major theme explored by Alexie, is standing up for your beliefs and to make things change no matter how hard that may be. The Character Junior (Also called Arnold) is a character that truly expresses this theme and is able to blossom through the ideas behind this theme. In the book Junior not only goes to a new and better school but, he also leaves the reservation and even takes on the reservation sports teams in order to follow his dreams and do what he finds right. The first way Junior is able to stand up for his ideas and change his world for the better is by moving to a new school.

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735 Words | 3 Pages

Junior loses a lot of friends and family at the young age of fourteen. He gets bullied because he was born with too much cerebral spinal fluid inside his skull, but he has his best friend Rowdy there to help him. Junior realizes that he needs to leave the reservation to get a better life for himself. He goes to a new school off the

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996 Words | 4 Pages

Junior is a teenage boy who is different from everyone else on the reservation. He has big goals, but he is an outcast so nobody pays attention to him. When he moves and plays his first game against his old school, everyone thinks he is a traitor and “boos” him. He feels more accepted at Reardan than his home school.

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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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