This story is written by Sherman Alexie and is a story of hope for the children of different ethnicity. Hope for them to merge in the American society. The author in the story presents himself as a child having a dream to blend in the American society and by sticking to his dream he grew among the children of his same background. Sherman is a Native American Indian and is expected to be slow and “stupid”. The story is interesting.
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.
Junior Spirit from the novel “ The absolutely true diary of a part -time Indian” has many dreams and hopes he wants to achieve. He has to go through many obstacles to get what he desires. The whole novel itself has many different outcomes for a theme but in my opinionn, his dreams are the main one. Junior Spirit is a 14- year old Indian boy who lives with his family and other Indians in the rez. In the rez, Junior is more of an outsider than a popular kid.
The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian should be taught at DHS. It teaches a person about reality and about the struggles of the world, yes it uses profanity and sexual, but it shows what can happen to a teenager and showing them what could happen to them. The absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian is a wonderful and fantastic book. Reardan, the all white school Junior transfers to, is about 23 miles off the reservation. This means he either has to hitchhike or walk because his family can’t afford the money for gas, that could be someone in a teen in Douglas community.
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
His passion for books, which was greatly inspired by his father, is the power force that permits Alexie to be removed from the barriers of Indian mentality and failure. With the same passion for reading, he also wishes to inspire future Indians by his example that one must refuse to accept and live out the role as an Indian that society has imposed on them. Toward the end of his short story, he shares how he visits the reservation schools to teach creative writing to Indian kids and notices how “[t]hey look at [him] with bright eyes and arrogant wonder. They are trying to save their lives” (18). The words, “they are trying to save their lives” convey such a powerful message; despite all of the doors one must break through just as Superman did in the comic book, hope remains.
Have you ever lost someone you loved or was important in your life? Well Junior has, he has lost many people in his life. He has gone to a total of 42 funerals in his lifetime and he is only 14. You will find out more about Junior in the novel The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie. Most of the people Junior has lost were due to alcohol.
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.
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.
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).
Rowdy is oppressed and that is what makes him so unhappy all the time. Rowdy’s father beats him. Alexie writes early on in the book that “His father is drinking hard and is throwing
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
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).
ANELISWA NALA 2015317601 ENGL1624 DUE: 28 OCTOBER 2016 The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian has one mutual theme that associates all the other themes in the novel together. In the chapter titled; “Valentine Heart,” we encompass the most prominent and most cognisant theme of them all- grief. This chapter conveys the most detectable attributes of grief that functions as both an individual and collective process of dealing with loss. Argumentatively one could say that grieving has its fair share of adversities.
In Sherman Alexie’s short stories (and poems), there usually three central themes that the story rotates. In this paper, I will be exploring how he (Alexie) explores the themes losing culture, a cycle of regret, and using drugs (mainly alcohol) to escape. In Indian Education, the short story, Alexie seems to show that whenever young Victor tries to express himself through his culture, he is punished. Take the section “First Grade” for example. In first grade, Junior (the main character and narrator) says that “The little warrior in me roared to life that day..” and makes comparisons to traditional Native American warriors, such as describing the brusies on the other boy’s face as “war paint” or how Junior chants “it’s a good day to die”, which is phrase typically associated with Crazy Horse, who was a Native American chief.
