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An Analysis Of Sherman Alexie's The Absolutely True Diary Of A Part-Time Indian

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There are multiple factors that are a part of an individual’s growth, their environment being one of them. Sherman Alexie’s novel, The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian displays how a person’s setting affects the amount of growth they make. Junior, the narrator decides to leave the reservation, embarking on a journey full of discrimination and bullying, which leads to Junior finding his true self. Through the setting and character of Junior, Sherman Alexie proves that a person can grow if they are in an environment that fosters hope.
Before Junior goes to school at Reardan, he attended school in the reservation. In the reservation he would constantly live with a negative mindset about life. In the story Junior mentions that his father keeps his saxophone clean in hopes of playing his saxophone one day. Junior states, “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). His belief of Indians never being allowed any choices or opportunities in life shows how negative his outlook is on life. On Junior’s first day of school at Reardan, his father tried to give him encouragement, and Junior …show more content…

Junior grows from a pessimist, hopeless Indian boy to a motivated, positive individual because of the change he decided to make in his life. Changing environments to view personal growth is seen today as well. As reported in, “Going to College: Close to Home Vs. Leaving the Nest”, “Entering into a new environment is a big component of the growth and personal development that students go through during their college experience, says Greene.” Meaning that students like being away from familiar things because it them helps to be more independent in facing problems, and learning from them on your

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In life you have many choices. One of which is deciding whether or not you are going to succeed or fail in life. In other words, choosing to stay hopeful or not. In the “Absolute True Diary of a Part- Time Indian” Junior goes through many situations where hope is needed. The author Sherman Alexie puts Junior as well as other characters in situations to make those hard decisions.

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Mr. p was one of the biggest inspirations to juniors actions. If it weren't for him Junior would be stuck at the rez forever and most likely become like all the other adults, drunk and angry. When junior began his journey to achieve his goals at Reardan it was very difficult. He was the only “different” kid there. Different meaning he was the only Indian in a school of white kids.

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It all comes down to discovering how we can win, even when the odds are against us. A major theme in The Absolutely True Diary of a Part Time Indian is never giving up. Junior starts life with serious brain damage and physical abnormalities. His family is poor. He is Indian, he doesn’t have access to the same level of schools, and health care as the white kids.

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Junior being born on the Reservation has always been poor and put down by others. He has had a horrible life with pain coming from a new direction each day but has coped with it that is why he is still alive today to write this book. Although he may or may not admit it, the ways he coped with his life were not great after all. When faced with a

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Each individual that is described as ‘the crazy ones, the misfits, the rebels, the troublemakers, the round pegs in the square holes, and the ones who see things differently’ are people who don’t fit in society and those who would not likely be accepted by others but can be described as innovators. However, the ones who see things differently would be applied to Sherman Alexie, an author, poet, and Native America of the Spokane/Coeur d’Alene from the Indian Reservation in Wellpinit, WA. He experienced a misfit as a teen of racial groups and struggle of finding himself in a new world that led him to write The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, with a quote, “Life is a constant struggle between being an individual and being a member

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In a few scenes of the the grades one through twelve the short story “Indian Education,” by the Native American author and filmmaker Sherman Alexie is able to show us what it is like growing up in the white, American culture. Sherman Alexie is able to give us a glimpse of the differences of what it means to be in a non-white student area that is struggling due to the effects of colonization. Even though it has been many years since the European explores “found” North America, the settlers and government continued to expand into Indian territories. The Native Americans gradually saw their land and culture diminishing as they were relocated to reservations. The feelings of oppression become obvious through the eyes of Victor, a young boy.

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He realizes that his team has numerous economic and social advantages. Junior’s ability to address topics like poverty, racism and bullying with humor is a significant characteristic of his voice. For Junior, as well as his friends Rowdy and Penelope, part of growing up is recognizing that the world is more complicated than a strict division of opposites, it’s possible to be more than one thing—part of countless different “tribes”—is what enables him to unify his split identity and, as someone destined to travel beyond the reservation, navigate the world both figuratively and

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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.

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If he’d been anything 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.” Sherman Alexie

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Junior’s father’s drinking problems and the lack of funds to afford decent living conditions on the reservation are prevalent issues throughout the book that provide an insight into this theme. This proves that the author has written this novel to exhibit the hardships of those in poverty are detrimental to a child’s future. First, the novel shows the hardships of poverty by showing the discrimination made against Junior. On page 86, Junior states he “remembered when I [he] used to be a human being,” (Alexie 86).

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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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No matter the place in the world there are always leaders and followers, but sometimes there are people who take their own route. Within The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, Junior is that person who takes his own route. This is because of all the conflicts surrounding him. Junior’s decisions were impacted by the conflicts around him because he wanted to try his best to escape the hostile environment he was in. When people are facing adversity they don’t want to accept what is happening they want to fight back.

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Mr. P advises Junior to have perseverance so, he should never give up on his hope of becoming better. Mr. P believes hope leads to greater things, a better future. Therefore, he wants Junior to have hope and leave the reservation for the greater thing, a better future. Another example is Junior's experience at Reardan. For instance, while Roger is making inappropriate comments, Junior decides to defend Indians, black people, and buffalo, so “he punched Roger in the face”(Alexie 65).

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