Perseverance In The Absolute True Diary Of A Part Time Indian By Alexie

Perseverance: The Road to Success and Maturation Life knocks people down all the time. But it is said that it doesn't matter how many times a person gets knocked down, it is how many times that person gets back up. This is called perseverance, which can be used to help those succeed and overcome the hardships in their life. In “The Absolute True Diary of a Part-Time Indian” Alexie uses the protagonist Junior, to show how perseverance can be an effective trait, as it helps him conquer the obstacles in his life, and also expand his limits. As Junior matures he realizes that he has many obstacles within his life, like the fact that he lives in poverty, a lot of people show racism towards him and his people, and the death of family members and

Throughout the novel the reader can see that Junior and Rowdy’s friendship slowly grows apart, which is what causes tensions between the two during the game. When the coach tells Junior he is guarding Rowdy that night, he says, “ I don’t think I can do this,”(188) which shows Junior’s lack of self-confidence. He starts the game and as Rowdy steals the ball, Junior chases after him. Junior says to the reader his calculations of what he needs to do in order to stop Rowdy. “I couldn’t foul him. That would be like giving up. So I sped up up and got ready to jump with Rowdy.” (191) This clearly shows that Junior didn’t believe he could do anything to stop Rowdy. However, he says he didn’t want to give up, so as he speeds up, his perseverance, helps him to stop Rowdy. “I rose above him as he tried to dunk it. 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. While attending the school, a very racist joke was made towards him. Despite the racism, he continues to attend the school, because it will

An example of bullying towards Junior is when he transfers schools, and starts attending Reardan. A kid named Roger makes a very racist joke where his friends laugh at him and the other kids all think he is weird when he first starts attending. Junior says that he, “felt like Roger had kicked [him] in the face,” (64) and so, he punched Roger in the face. Another way that Junior is bullied in the novel is back before he left the reservation. The Andruss brothers - John, Jim and Joe - , “ the cruelest triplets in the history of the world,” (20) saw Junior and called him many names like , “Hydromatic, Hydrocarbon, Hydrocrack, Hydrodynamic,” (21) and many more. Junior’s version of perseverance was getting revenge. So he went with Rowdy and hid by their camp. When they passed out they shaved off their eyebrows and cut their braids off. After being bullied by the brothers, This shows Junior’s own version of perseverance, which is revenge. Junior was able to get back back up after being knocked down by the triplets and push through the pain from them. Junior persevered through the bullying and got his revenge too. Therefore, perseverance in many different ways, allows Junior to overcome