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Sherman Alexie Indian Sparknotes

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Recommended: Essay of the absolutely true diary of a part time indian

Sherman Alexie’s powerful novel, The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-time Indian, investigates the concealed complexity of the Spokane Indians world. Sherman Alexie illustrates jovial humor, brutal reality, and eulogistic sadness through the pragmatic main character, Arnold Spirit Junior, to allow the reader fathom what the Native Americans are feeling. Indian reservations ― although they are home to some of the most culturally rich and spiritual people ― have had a long history of being more prison-like than a place of peace and comfort. The hopeless Indians, in modern society, that inhabit the reservations are suffering through poverty and drunk alcoholic chaos. Poverty and alcohol seem to dominate the once joyful society. The world filled …show more content…

Throughout the book we can infer that the reservation resembles a prison, “Reservations were meant to be prisons, you know? Indians were supposed to move onto reservations and die. We were supposed to disappear...Reservations were meant to be death camps.” (216-217, Alexie) Near the beginning of the story we are introduced with how the Indians feel and are followed up by Junior stating ““It sucks to be poor, and it sucks to feel that you somehow deserve to be poor… And because you’re Indian you start believing you’re destined to be poor. It’s an ugly circle and there’s nothing you can do about it.” (13, Alexie) Alexie brings to light the depraved and vitriolic darkness world that lies within the reservation, and knocks down the prison walls for us to grasp the didactic lives of days without clean water, food, and quality education. Those living within the reservation realize that there is very little they can do to escape the grim manipulation that is poverty. During the meek petulant times Junior attended Willpinit, the small school that resides within the reservation, he has a blithesome conversation With Mr. P about how the poverty seems to be growing as the bleak despair rises and the Spokane Indians are just giving up. “Every white person on this rez should get smashed in the face… All Indians should get smashed in the face, too. The only thing you kids are being taught is how to give up…But not you. You won’t give up.” (42-43, Alexie) At this moment, the reader is exposed to Juniors foolish yet haunting dream of escaping the impoverished realm and travel to the white

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Throughout history, there have been many literary studies that focused on the culture and traditions of Native Americans. Native writers have worked painstakingly on tribal histories, and their works have made us realize that we have not learned the full story of the Native American tribes. Deborah Miranda has written a collective tribal memoir, “Bad Indians”, drawing on ancestral memory that revealed aspects of an indigenous worldview and contributed to update our understanding of the mission system, settler colonialism and histories of American Indians about how they underwent cruel violence and exploitation. Her memoir successfully addressed past grievances of colonialism and also recognized and honored indigenous knowledge and identity.

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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 Superman and Me by Sherman Alexie, Alexie’s father’s love for books grew to make his self-love books ending up in Alexie teaching himself how to read. Alexie describes the stereotypes and what is expected of Indian children and how Indian children were expected to basically have no knowledge Many lived up to those expectations inside the classroom but invalidated them on the outside. While other children were doing this, Alexie’s father was one of the few Indians on the reservation who went to Catholic School on purpose and was also an devoted reader. Alexie grew up around books. His father had a strong love for books as he bought them by the pound from pawn shops, goodwill and the salvation army.

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Argument for Banning “The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian” Book in Middle Schools Published in 2007, “The Absolutely True Diary of Part-Time Indian” by Sherman Alexie says about the moving story of a Native American teenager named Arnold Spirit who made the bold decision to attend an all-white high school from Spokane reservation to find hope for the future in the Reardan. This volume won the National Book Award in 2007 and won several other awards. Even though this novel can be power of education, “The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian” paperback should be banned because this is not appropriate for middle schools.

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Alcohol is an epidemic within the Indian reservation as well as all over the world. There are many themes present in the book The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian. One particular theme that is present throughout the story is that alcoholism kills and ruins lives. In this section I will use quotes to show and prove why Junior hates alcohol and how it affects him as well as others. My first quote is “Yep, my grandmother was pow-wow famous.

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Writer Sherman Alexie has a knack of intertwining his own problematic biographical experience with his unique stories and no more than “The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven” demonstrates that. Alexie laced a story about an Indian man living in Spokane who reflects back on his struggles in life from a previous relationship, alcoholism, racism and even the isolation he’s dealt with by living off the reservation. Alexie has the ability to use symbolism throughout his tale by associating the title’s infamy of two different ethnic characters and interlinking it with the narrator experience between trying to fit into a more society apart from his own cultural background. However, within the words themselves, Alexie has created themes that surround despair around his character however he illuminates on resilience and alcoholism throughout this tale.

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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.

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The novel Reservation Blues, written by Sherman Alexie reveals different struggles encountered by the Native Americans on the Spokane Indian Reservation through the use of history, traditions, and values. Thomas Builds-the-Fire, a pureblood Indian, forms a band with his childhood acquaintances Victor Joseph and Junior Polatkin called Coyote Springs. Alexie uses a variety of scenes and personal encounters between characters and their dialogue to portray the meaning of tribal identity throughout the novel. A cultures goal is to prove their identity and be superior to one another; The American culture has achieved dominance through white hegemony while the Spokane American Indian tribe is in a battle of oppression struggling to preserve their tribal identity. Spokane Native Americans are very passionate about their tribal identities yet are envious of the power that the white hegemony holds against them, leading them to their depression.

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Years of being mistreated and living in poverty from generations to generations, engraves the harsh memories into the Indians from the early ages of childhood. Alexie provides the reader with brutal memories that Wright and Sherman, record company agents, have of the harming of the Indians: “Wright looked at Coyote Springs. He saw their Indian faces. He saw the faces of millions of Indians, beaten, scarred by smallpox and frostbite, split open by bayonets and bullets. He looked at his own white hands and saw the blood stains there” (244).

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Faced with many obstacles from poverty to racial stereotypes, Junior must override them if he is to make his life better than that of fellow Indians. Interestingly, rather than letting the obstacles hold him back Junior understands that his destiny is in his own hands and he must celebrate who he is even if it means fighting. In the end, we see a boy who have managed to overcome all hardships to get to the top, even if it means making tough choices such as changing schools, therefore is could be seen that race and stereotypes only made Junior

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They are trying to save their lives.” Although Sherman Alexie’s success seems as if it has only opened up doors for himself it did not, it opened up doors for other Indian kids that are still on the reservation. When Sherman Alexie wrote his books and poems the kids on the reservation read them. They gave them hope, he gave them a reason to fight for their lives the way he did. Those kids too started to write their own short stories and found the same joy in learning that Sherman Alexie did.

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This shows how racist the white people on the reservation were to go and try to erase all the original culture that lived on the reservation. The white people trying to erase the Indian culture on the reservation proves the racism towards Indigenous people and how they have gotten their culture Stripped Away from them for years. “‘I'm sick of Indian guys who treat white women like bowling trophies’”(Alexie 115). This quote from Rowdy after Arnold emails him about his new love interest, shows

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Expectations often impose an inescapable reality. In the short story “Indian Education” by Sherman Alexie, Victor often struggles with Indian and American expectations during school. Alexie utilizes parallelism in the construction of each vignette, introducing a memoir of tension and concluding with a statement about Victor’s difficulties, to explore the conflict between cultures’ expectations and realities. Alexei initially uses parallelism to commence each vignette with cultural tension. In second grade, Victor undergoes a conflict with his missionary teacher, who coerced Victor into taking an advanced spelling test and cutting his braids.

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Despite the negative stereotype of American Indians, the objections and disapproval of fellow Natives, and the criticism of others, Sherman Alexie went on to become a successful writer that has inspired many. Alexie overcame many obstacles that would have deterred him from his goal, but he was able to remain steadfast and continue on in his pursuit of writing. As a result, he has published many literary works that include several short stories, poems, and a variety of novels. He allows his culture to seep into his writing, and continues to inspire young American Indians who also desire the path of knowledge.

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