The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie discusses the harsh reality that can be growing up on an Indian reservation. Junior is someone who knows what's it like based on those around him and his own personal experiences. Through alcoholism, poverty, and racial/cultural differences we learn about the pain Junior has experienced while living on an Indian reservation. Seeing the people not have a future is why he left. His dream is to be remembered for something he did in life. That leads to the main problems Junior deals with. To start, alcoholism is the worst problem Junior has to deal with, but he is not the one with the issue it's those around him. Many Indians in this book have some sort of addiction to alcohol. Junior’s father has an addiction, Junior’s dad good friend Eugene was killed by someone to drunk to even realize he did it. Junior’s grandmother was killed by a drunk driver and his older sister burned to death because she was too drunk to wake up during a fire. It is stated that Junior had …show more content…
Rowdy gets very angry with Junior for leaving the reservation. The Indians have a great sense of pride so when Junior went to school at Reardan it was seen as him betraying those close to him like Rowdy. His family didn’t feel this way but it is shown in two pictures. (pg 53 and 182 ) During the basketball rematch of Reardan and Wellpinit, he feels bad after they beat them because he knows how bad it is growing up on the Indian reservation Vs the white community by Reardan. There is a picture that shows differences between White and Indian based on their outfit. (pg 57) Junior shows the differences between them. Leaving the Indian reservation and going to school in a white community was so that he would be able to follow dreams instead of being stuck on the reservation forever. He wanted to end up better than his parents. (pictures that support this pg 12 and