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Essay the absolutely true diary
Essay the absolutely true diary
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More handpicked essays just for you.
Essay the absolutely true diary
Essay the absolutely true diary
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
The poem “American Hero” by Essex Hemphill, is about a competitive match of basketball, however, towards the end the author describes a social denial from other neighborhoods that despise his team. To convey his feelings, the author’s tone in the beginning of the poem is thrilling as it stimulates the feeling of playing competitively in a game of basketball when reading until the game is over when the tone gets wretched as the thought of being denied by the opposing team’s school sinks in to the author’s mind. Furthermore, the tone and the use imagery are used to convey the sense of being in the game and knowing the environment in this tense basketball game. An example of this is on lines 5-9, it states “It’s a shimmering club light and I’m
Setting In the first 10 pages of the book the overall mood was upbeat and dramatic. The main female character (Carli) fainted into the main male character (Rex) at Rex’s basketball game. That’s where their relationship is born. It’s fitting to start on a basketball court. This is because many of the main conflicts surround basketball and it’s relevant in all the main characters' lives.
Have you ever experienced hardships in your teen years. In The Absolute True Diary of a Part Time Indian Arnold Spirit is a fourteen year old high school student who leaves the Wellpinit reservation to a white school named Reardon in hope of a better life. Arnold as a character changed drastically throughout the novel and some of the characters that contributed to this were Mr.P, Coach, and Arnold’s Grandmother. Mr.P made Arnold have hope in himself, Coach made Arnold feel that him feel more important, and Grandma made him feel that him less scared.
The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian written by Sherman Alexie is a novel that follows the journey of a young Native American boy named Junior, as he transfers to a new school and encounters unknown situations. At the beginning of the book, he struggles with an abundant amount of physical insecurity and sense of inferiority about his basketball skills. Nevertheless, after he transfers to Reardan High School, he forms new friendships and joins the school’s varsity basketball team. Due to these positive influences in his life, Junior gains more confidence in his looks while also becoming more determined and prideful in his basketball gameplay.
In comparison to the humour and separation of cultures, the relationship that is presented within both Wellpinit, and Reardan shows how the game brought together both communities. Within the passage the game is represented as a change of identity for Junior. Through Junior’s awareness of his intersecting characteristics, he was able to better acknowledge himself, and the differences between his indigenous culture and the dominant white culture. Through the overlapping of his race, class, and disability, this section of the passage focuses less on the similarities and differences but more upon the ‘connection that join them’ (Andersen & Collins 2013, p. 5).
The book focuses on a young boy named Arnold Spirit who shows persistence and bravery as he defies all odds and strides towards a happier more successful life than his parents and ancestors before him. Arnold is a bright, inspiring young boy who grows up with little fortune and is destined to continue down the path of a poor, misunderstood Indian. However, his fate changes for the better when a spark lights the fire inside of him to strive to pursue a better, more flourishing life as he makes an extraordinary decision to transfer to an all-white school for a worthier education. However, the drastic change of schools puts a burden on his family to get him to school as well as leads to extreme bullying from not just kids at his new school but also from his fellow Indians in his hometown. In The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, I learned that it doesn 't matter what your situation is and what you are expected to accomplish in your lifetime or what standards have already been set for you because you can be whoever you want to be with hard work, ambition, and confidence.
In his double life in Reardan and on the reservation, he feels “like a magician slicing himself in half, with Junior living on the north side of the river and Arnold living on the south,” (p. 60-61) “I was half Indian in one place and half white in the other. It was like being Indian was my job, but it was only part-time.” (p.118) Just as his absolutely true identity includes both Junior and Arnold, the divided extremes he describes often turn out to be hazy. Roger, the Reardan student who greets Junior in the schoolyard with a cruel racist joke, becomes a sympathetic friend and role model; Rowdy is both Junior’s greatest friend and his worst enemy, and hates him because he loves him so abundantly. Things like the basketball game Reardan wins against Wellpinit becomes both a glorious victory and a shameful moral loss for Junior.
Arnold’s journey to the off-reservation school, Reardan would’ve been very different without friendships with his lifelong friend Rowdy, and his new friends at Reardan, the sweet Penelope, ex-bully Roger, and nerdy Gordy. In the book The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, author Sherman Alexie shows different aspects of friendship by putting Arnold in situations that have him trust in others, show independence, and teach him to not judge people based on first impressions alone. Arnold’s friends are his best secret-keepers, and he keeps their secrets, too, helping him establish trust in his relationships. When Arnold witnesses his crush, and the most popular girl in school, Penelope, throwing up in the bathroom, he keeps her secret. When they were younger, and Arnold told Rowdy about his childhood crush, Rowdy thought he was ridiculous, but,“...
In “The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-time Indian” by Sherman Alexie, the most important chapter is “Hope Against Hope” because it shows the theme of hope. This is the chapter where Mr. P talks personally to Junior about life and his sister so he can understand her better. Eventually he tells Junior to leave the reservation and to find a better life for himself. But, without this chapter Junior might not have ever left the reservation and gone to Rearden.
In his book the Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, Sherman Alexie portrays a teenage boy, Arnold Spirit (junior) living in white man’s world, and he must struggle to overcome racism and stereotypes if he must achieve his dreams. In the book, Junior faces a myriad of misfortunes at his former school in ‘the rez’ (reservation), which occurs as he struggles to escape from racial and stereotypical expectations about Indians. For Junior he must weigh between accepting what is expected of him as an Indian or fight against those forces and proof his peers and teachers wrong. Therefore, from the time Junior is in school at reservation up to the time he decides to attend a neighboring school in Rearden, we see a teenager who is facing tough consequences for attempting to go against the racial stereotypes.
The new school gives Junior a bunch of new opportunities, he ends up making new friends and meets a girl. Junior deals with noticeable struggles throughout the book, The Absolutely True Diary of a Part Time Indian, that includes depression, low self-esteem, and bullying; he builds resilience to these struggles through his drawings, words, and actions. Junior’s mental health started at a young age. He would get bullied by kids and adults on the reservation. Junior has Rowdy, his best friend who helps him through the bullying that he goes through.
The novel The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian( Alexie S.J., Jr, 2007), written by Sherman Alexie, describes a story about a brave Indian boy called Arnold Spirit Jr. who finds out his potential and always go ahead towards his dream. Read throughout the book, comedy and tragedy always accompany with Arnold`s life. The 14-year-old Indian boy was born with illness and sneer. On the way he grew up, he suffered from various violence from different people. The tragedies in Arnold`s teenage life such as poverty, violence and death give readers deep impression.
As Winston Churchill said,” Success is not final. Failure is not fatal”. It is the perseverance and hope to continue that counts. This is the story of a boy named Junior whose key is his hope. The Absolutely True Diary is the life story of a Arnold Spirit (Junior) and his efforts to break the stereotypes about Indians.
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).
There are main themes in every novel some may be obvious while some require research and analysis to find. In The Absolute True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, there are many themes such as bullying, racism, drug abuse and alcoholism. Though only a few of those apply directly to Junior, the protagonist, there is one that he is affected by more than any other. This one is isolation.