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What Are The Effects Of Alcohol In The Absolutely True Diary Of A Part Time Indian

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Effects of Alcohol in Communities Sherman Alexie's The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian takes place in the present time in Spokane, Washington. This is a story of a boy named Junior who grows up on an Indian reservation and has to fight with poverty while watching alcohol destroy his family as he tries to find hope. He realizes in order to find hope he must get out of the reservation, so his way of doing that is by attending Reardan, an all-white school outside of Spokane, where he faces a complete set of new challenges. In his novel, Alexie conveys the idea that the misuse of alcohol has devastating effects on a community. The novel suggests that alcohol can have deadly effects on families, leading to loved ones dying both directly of alcohol but also …show more content…

As Mr. P is explaining to Junior about how he needs to leave the reservation in order to escape the insidious addict filled, depressed world that he lives in finally concludes with, "'Son,' Mr. P said. 'You're going to find more and more hope the farther and farther you walk away from this sad, sad, sad reservation'" (Alexie 43). This conversation indicates the reservation and the community as a whole has chosen to give up, instead of finding hope for their life, and just turns to alcohol for all their issues. Mr. P acknowledges this which is why he warns Junior that in order to ever make anything of his life he must leave the hopeless reservation. After Junior accepts his father's apology for using all their remaining money on alcohol, running away to get drunk, and leaving no money left for Christmas, Junior adds, "But it wasn't okay. It was about as far from okay as you can get. If okay was the earth, then I was standing on Jupiter. I don't know why I said it was okay. For some reason, I was protecting the feelings of the man who had broken my heart yet again. Jeez, I'd

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Alcohol can destroy not only the consumer's life through ruining their body and functionality, but can also lead to other types of abuse for those around them. Jeannette’s dad, Rex Walls, is an alcoholic. There is no debate about it, as Rex is constantly drinking just to survive the day. When Jeannette’s birthday is being celebrated, she only wants

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Over time, many Native Americans turned to alcohol to cope with the pain and difficulties they faced. Junior's father in the story is one example, as he battles alcoholism. This addiction not only hurts many people, but also tears families apart and makes it harder for communities to heal and move forward. Racism is something Junior deals with both on the reservation and when he goes to the arena. This isn't new: Native Americans have faced discrimination since the first settlers arrived.

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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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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,” (Alexie 19). In addition, Junior remarks that it’s not just him that is poor, but his tribe in the reservation too. It shows how much poverty is affecting him and the people on the reservation. According to Sherman Alexie, he mentions in the novel, “My school and my tribe are so poor and sad that we have to study from the same dang books our parents studied from.

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One afternoon, while Junior is sitting on his porch, a local teacher from Junior’s school visits him. He gives Junior hope and begins warning him to move somewhere where he can’t give up because everyone around him has already broken down. “...you have to take your hope and go somewhere where other people have hope.” (43) This lights the fire in Junior where he realizes he needs to change everything for his survival or he will crumble.

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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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Death/alcoholism the true diary of a Partime Indian Alcoholism is another prevalent throughout his book that the author discuses continuously junior defines his community and family as mostly drunk he is angry and hurt by this outcome and also he is hurt by the many tragic deaths that lead to alcohol surrounding his community I know only like five Indians in our whole tribe who had never drunk alcohol He is familiar with his family and community being alcoholics, and is far too aware with the consequences and concerns of heavy drinking habits and lifestyles The effects of alcoholism in junior life are seen numerous times junior talks about the disappoint times that there is no presents during Christmas because of family situation and incapability which increase when his father disappears for a number days because of alcohol addiction Arthur describes his

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Junior’s father’s drinking problems and the lack of funds to afford decent living conditions on the reservation are prevalent issues throughout the book that provide an insight into this theme. This proves that the author has written this novel to exhibit the hardships of those in poverty are detrimental to a child’s future. First, the novel shows the hardships of poverty by showing the discrimination made against Junior. On page 86, Junior states he “remembered when I [he] used to be a human being,” (Alexie 86).

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He is hopeful that he can one day leave the reservation and be successful, the only way to do that is to go to reardon. To conclude, Junior is very optimistic, that he can leave the reservation and become

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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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This quote shows how Juniors goes through stuggles with money because nobody wants to hire a “Resevation Indian boy”. This helps present how hard it is for a avrage kid on the reservation get a job so they would struggle with money because of this

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P’s advice and Junior’s experiences to to convey the theme that perseverance and hope can lead to great things. For example when Mr. P’s gives Junior advice regarding how to succeed in life, he says, “you kept your hope. And now, you have to go somewhere where other people have hope...away from this sad, sad, sad reservation”(Alexie 43). This evidence implies that, Mr. P’s advises Junior to keep up the hope but he know’s that Junior will give up and lose hope, being in the reservation. As a whole, he exclaim that Junior must go away from this reservation; to somewhere that has hope.

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The most common theme throughout the book is the use of alcohol and alcoholism among Native Americans. The use of alcohol in The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, shows its inappropriate role in Native American society. Junior’s writing after his sister’s death exemplifies this when he says that he, “Knew everybody would tell stories about Mary… and the whole time, everybody would be drinking booze and getting drunk and stupid and sad and mean” (pages 211-212). Alcohol has taken Junior’s sister from him, but in the process it reveals the truth of the stereotype of alcoholic Native Americans. Alcohol is used in a nonchalant manner and becomes normal to Native Americans.

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ANELISWA NALA 2015317601 ENGL1624 DUE: 28 OCTOBER 2016 The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian has one mutual theme that associates all the other themes in the novel together. In the chapter titled; “Valentine Heart,” we encompass the most prominent and most cognisant theme of them all- grief. This chapter conveys the most detectable attributes of grief that functions as both an individual and collective process of dealing with loss. Argumentatively one could say that grieving has its fair share of adversities.

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In this essay, “Let in Snow”, Sedaris proves that alcohol abuse can have a lasting effect on an entire family. He provided several examples from his own childhood experiences that described the effects alcoholism has on the family. He gained the audience’s trust by sharing his own experiences to prove and argue his point of view. Therefore, Sedaris made an extremely strong case against

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