“Each funeral was a funeral for all of us. We lived and died together.” (Alexie 166). Death and life are eternal conundrums that people must face, but how would an Indian boy think about mortality after having been through more than 40 funerals? In the first-person narrative novel, The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie, the theme of mortality and the fragility and powerlessness of life is highlighted through characterization, figurative language, and setting.
The theme of mortality, especially death caused by accident, is revealed through the characterization in the book. To start, Grandmother Spirit is an example of a character who is killed by accident. She is the kindest and the most popular elder on the reservation,
…show more content…
To begin, at Mary’s funeral, Junior states, “As the coffin settled into the dirt, it made this noise, almost like a breath, you know? Like a sigh. Like the coffin was settling down for a long, long nap, for a forever nap.” (Alexie 209). The author uses a sad metaphor here to imply that Junior is still unwilling to accept the reality of his sister's death, and he hopes that the cruel tragedy is just “a long nap.” The continuous loss of relatives is too harsh for a boy, so Alexie uses a kind of “slight sorrow” to let Junior realize the weakness of life in the face of death. In addition, while cleaning the cemetery later, Junior says, “Reservations were meant to be prisons, you know? Indians were supposed to move onto reservations and die. We were supposed to disappear. But somehow or another, Indians have forgotten that reservations were meant to be death camps.” (Alexie 217). This hyperbole directly shows the root cause of these hopeless deaths around Junior — the whole reservation–it is not only alcohol and poverty that kills people; it is their entire hometown that is driving them to suicide slowly. Alexie shows the terrible truth that people's numbness and ignorance of death lead to them and their spirits being completely killed by the reservation, and tragedy will only repeat itself until everyone wakes up. In addition to these figurative languages, Alexie also uses the setting of the Spokane reservation and people’s worldviews to improve the theme of