The Absolutely True Diary Of A Part-Time Indian By Sherman Alexie

In The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, Rowdy’s heart is best represented by Junior. Junior brings happiness into Rowdy’s life, causing them to be inseparable friends. Throughout the novel, Junior continually brings up him and Rowdy spending time together. In total “Rowdy and [Junior] have spent 40,880 hours in each other’s company” (Alexie 24). This indicates that Rowdy and Junior will be best friends forever because of their time spent together. The only time that they are in a fight is when Junior announces that he is leaving the reservation. This causes Rowdy to realize that they will not keep their inseparable friendship because they do not go to school together. It takes many chapters in the novel for Rowdy to realize that

Rowdy does not have a functioning relationship with his family, so he takes it out on the people that he fights. If his relationship was less toxic, he would not be violent knowing that the people closest care about him. Rowdy knows that “[Junior’s] house is a safe place, so [he] spends most of his time with [Junior]. It’s like he’s a family member” (Alexie, 17). Junior's family will never use violence, unlike Rowdy’s dad, who beats him often. This demonstrates that Rowdy spends so much time with Junior and his family because he feels more comfortable in that environment. Background: Rowdy’s background is alcohol bottles. Bottles reflect Rowdy’s home environment, which involves his dad being drunk all of the time. Also, Rowdy’s dad beats Rowdy and his mom because the dad gets so drunk. Rowdy’s “father is drinking hard and throwing hard punches, so Rowdy and his mother are always walking around with bruised and bloody faces” (Alexie 16). This proves that the reason Rowdy is so violent is because his role model is his dad, who also uses violence to cope with repressed emotions like anger. Rowdy has to resort to violence because he does not know any other way to express his