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The Absolutely True Diary Of A Part-Time Indian

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The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian is a book that has a lot of emotions and themes that happen throughout the book. It shows a first person view of being an Indian in the world that we currently live in, and how people treat and view them. It was hard for Junior and his family to get the income that they needed because of his father's drinking and the struggle to get work. Although there were many different themes that were noticed in the book but there was one that caught my eye, I mean, my mother and father were working hard for me, too. They were constantly scraping together enough money to pay for gas, to get me lunch money, to buy me a new pair of jeans and a few new shirts. My parents gave me just enough money so that I …show more content…

From the way that everyone treats them and how they view them to just the living conditions he was there. Junior in the beginning was going to the school on the reservation that he lives on. When going to the school there are many kids that live the life that he does. In the story the theme was shown a lot throughout it. Seeing what Junior has to go through and how poor they actually are, really shows the readers that how they live is nothing near what we have. When he is on the reservation he is just a normal Indian kid that is poor. But when he leaves the reservation and goes to the outside world he is a totally different human. Going out of the reservation there are not many kids or families that are poor. When he moved to Reardan none of the kids knew who he was or anything about him. He tried to hide the fact that he was poor and so that the friends that he had would stay with him. It shows us readers that he has to try and do everything in his power to be able to act like he actually has a good life. Junior's family struggled with money to be able to afford gas for their car and get Junior to and from school. He took the bus to the reservation line and then walked from there to his house. His dad drank a lot causing him to take the money that they had and spend it all on drinks. While Junior was at Reardan he met a girl Penelope. With his family not having much money he had to pretend to not be poor, because he …show more content…

The quote that really shows what Junior has to go through or has to deal with when he goes out in the big world and out of the reservation. Because of Junior being Indian and being the only one that goes to Reardan school, he doesn't get treated or viewed the same as the other kids there. They look at him and judge him or stereotype him for what they think Indians are like. When they see him some automatically think of, alcoholic, poor and just different. But they really don’t know what he is like. None of the kids get to know him and let him show them that he is a very smart and friendly person. The significance of the poem is it shows the readers that what Junior has to go through is really wrong and the way that people view the Indians is not

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504 Words | 3 Pages

The differences didn't stop junior he continued to fight on despite the glares and judgments he received from others. Junior kept his head held high and kept fighting on and following his dreams. Although not everything was fixed, he also went through an emotional crisis. A few of his family members passed away and this brought him down, he was so depressed he was contemplating to give away everything he had earned. But a voice in the back of his head insisted that he didn't.

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406 Words | 2 Pages

Junior stated, “I thought that she’d start paying more attention to me and that everybody else would notice and then I’d become the most popular dude in the place. ”(81) He was obviously the only Indian guy in school and didn’t have many friends at all,except 2 people,Roger and Penelope. This situation turned into wanting more friends,less enemies,and wanting to impress Penelope. Junior was obviously poor and lived on the reservation.

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998 Words | 4 Pages

He is a poor Indian going to a middle-class white kid school, but there is more to that. At the reservation there are these unspoken rules, if someone talks badly or insults you, you have to fight them, that is the first one on that list. Getting into fights is normal at Wellpinit but at Rearden, everyone is all talk. In the book, a kid named Roger and his friends were making fun of Junior so he punches Roger. Roger is taken aback because no one at Rearden actually gets into fistfights.

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1256 Words | 6 Pages

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.”

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1121 Words | 5 Pages

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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696 Words | 3 Pages

The new school gives Junior a bunch of new opportunities, he ends up making new friends and meets a girl. Junior deals with noticeable struggles throughout the book, The Absolutely True Diary of a Part Time Indian, that includes depression, low self-esteem, and bullying; he builds resilience to these struggles through his drawings, words, and actions. Junior’s mental health started at a young age. He would get bullied by kids and adults on the reservation. Junior has Rowdy, his best friend who helps him through the bullying that he goes through.

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297 Words | 2 Pages

I chose to analyze this quotation because it reveals the development of Junior’s realization about the extent of his poverty. He is shocked to see his mother’s name in his geometry book, and he understands how the cycle of poverty in which he is trapped is affecting his life outside his home. Next, the quotation is significant because it reveals Junior’s thoughts and feelings regarding the education system on the reservation. He says the textbook situation “is absolutely the saddest thing in the world”, which emphasizes his disbelief.

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735 Words | 3 Pages

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

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1207 Words | 5 Pages

At Reardan, he hides the truth, instead making himself look strong, brave and wealthy. Introductory statement to title and author - relating to general information: As shown in the title, The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, Junior is split in his identity. Afraid to show who he is because of negative stereotypes on both sides, Junior

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1001 Words | 5 Pages

It goes back to when Junior’s old teacher, mr. P has this to say “when i first started teaching here, that’s what we did to the rowdy ones, you know? We beat them. That’s how we were taught to teach you. We were supposed to kill the Indian to save the child.” This foreshadows how Junior has a big rip within himself and begins to drift away from Indian culture and adopts white culture.

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867 Words | 4 Pages

I couldn't believe it. How horrible is that?”(Sherman 31) Junior already has been set back in life by being born on the reservation but being poor has doubled the set back, as he has almost no resources to progress in maybe the most important thing in his life

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765 Words | 4 Pages

It’s shown in the story that elders in the reservation, like Junior’s parents, don't succeed because they are around those that don’t try to succeed due to lack of

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702 Words | 3 Pages

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).

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920 Words | 4 Pages

There are main themes in every novel some may be obvious while some require research and analysis to find. In The Absolute True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, there are many themes such as bullying, racism, drug abuse and alcoholism. Though only a few of those apply directly to Junior, the protagonist, there is one that he is affected by more than any other. This one is isolation.

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954 Words | 4 Pages

The character Junior suffers in poverty with the rest of his community in his reservation. Junior says that people think that hunger is the worst part of poverty. But sometimes they get a bucket of KFC and it then feels like that its worth living for. In the novel we read that the poverty is an ongoing event in this reservation and that no one is successful if they stay there.

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