Analysis Of Sherman Alexie's The Absolutely True Diary Of A Part-Time Indian

Identity is the set of behavioral or personal characteristics by which an individual is recognizable as a member of a group. Each people have their own personality, being different and unique from other people. Even though it’s different, each people have some similarity with others that connected them together as a community or a group. However, these groups is not open for all people, some people have to sacrifice their aspects of identity in order to belong to the group that they want to join.

In “The Joy of Reading and Writing: Superman and Me”, published in the Los Angeles Times, journalist Sherman Alexie expresses the division between the Indian and white culture also how hard it

“The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian”, written by Sherman Alexie, is a novel describing a 14 year old’s journey throughout high school. In the story, Junior, the main character, is faced with multiple obstacles in his life: Hydrocephalus, poverty, and the target of bullying. Despite the world being against him, Junior’s multiple traits helps him greatly when it comes to the adversity that accompanies his migration from the Wellpinit Reservation to Rearden.

A person has always been able to choose to what extent their cultural experiences affect their perspective. Amy Tan’s, “Two Kinds,” Bharati Mukherjee’s, “Two Ways to Belong in America,” and Robert Lake’s, “An Indian Father’s Plea,” all show how the main characters have chosen to let their experiences have an effect on their cultural identity. A person’s cultural experiences shape perception based on their own identifications and they may chose to assimilate to different cultures.

This rhetorical analysis will bring you through the "How to Fight Monsters" chapter of Sherman Alexie 's story : An Absolutely True Diary of a Part Time Indian. This book is a semi-autobiography that won the 2007 U.S. National Book Award For Young People 's Literature. This story is about an Indian boy from a poor reservation with an alcoholic father, who wishes for a better life. In order to achieve this better life, Junior decides to move to another school in order to have " hope" for his future. During this transition into his new school Junior is marked as a traiter and looses the one close friend he had on the reservation. At the opening scene of the story Junior is asking his parents "who has the most hope?" In his desperate

“Optimism is the faith that leads to achievement. Nothing can be done without hope and confidence”, as said by Helen Keller, who was deaf and blind but continued to live her life to the fullest. Life comes with its pains and sufferings, from deaths in the family to conflicts with close friends. But through hope comes the power to cope and persevere through stressful situations in life. In a positive light, hope can be the driving force to reaching one’s dreams. Sherman Alexie’s book, “The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian”, is a story that emphasizes the importance of hope, and how it influences one’s outlook on life and the actions that individuals take. Through the usage of literary elements such as _____ and _____, at its heart, The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian is a story about hope: the hope of overcoming obstacles, the hope of having a better life, the hope of achieving life goals, the hope of pushing the limits, the hope of proving oneself, and the hope of meeting expectations.

“Dr. Mather, if the Ghost Dance worked, there would be no exceptions. All you white people would disappear. All of you. If those dead Indians came back to life, they wouldn’t crawl into a sweathouse with you. They wouldn‘t smoke the pipe with you. They’d kill you. They’d gut you and eat your heart.”

The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, written by Sherman Alexie, is a novel about a 14 year old Indian boy, which not too surprisingly is based on his own life. Throughout the book the main character Junior, who is later referred to as Arnold, goes through a series of events that change not only the way others look at him , but how he views himself as well. This book will teach you that it’s never too late to change your life, all you have to have is hope.

Contrary to the belief,the American dream is not for everyone. Consider if an African American, a Hispanic, a Caucasian, an Asian, and a Native American was born. Who do you think as the best chance of achieving the American dream in their life? The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie and Because My Father Always Said He Was The Only Indian Who Saw Jimi Hendrix Play The Star Spangled Banner At Woodstock by Sherman Alexie explore the central idea of how race affects the American Experience. The Absolutely True Diary Of A Part-Time Indian is a novel about a Native American named Junior living on the Spokane indian reservation who decides to go to a predominantly white school in order to get a better education.

Before his initiations, Arnold lives on the reservation and has a generally negative outlook on life. Arnold says that the Indians are “Just poor. That’s all we are” (Alexie 13). Arnold believes that Indians were meant to be poor and always will be. He does not express resentment in this; instead, he simply accepts his conditions. Mr. P says that “We’re all defeated.” about the people on the reservation (Alexie 42). Mr. P accurately describes the attitudes of most people on the reservation in this quote, as most people have

While Mukherjee decided to embrace the new American culture, her sister decided to stick to her Indian roots. Mukherjee struggles to try and find where she belongs because she is always changing for others rather than for herself. Encountering differences is something she dealt with on her journey of creating her identity, she states, “Nearly 20 years ago, when I was living in my husband’s ancestral homeland of Canada, I was always well-employed but never allowed to feel part of the local Quebec or larger Canadian society” (Mukherjee 293). While changing herself to conform for others, we can all take a lesson from Mukherjee. In life, we go through many changes because we are growing up, becoming more mature, and finding things we like or dislike. We tend to change because of the people we surround ourselves with, like friends or coworkers in order to be accepted. However, she did not seem happy to be forced into a position where she had to conform to the way people would talk to her all for the sake of her husband. This takes away from building and developing one’s own identity because it does not represent who you really are. In society, we are sort of growing away from that in a sense people are taking pride in their identities. For instance, immigrants, women, and races are all

Thesis: Only by abandoning the reservation and disregarding the social expectations that were manifested in Western society, was Junior able discover his own unique identity.

In the novel “The Absolutely True Diary of a Part time Indian”, author Sherman Alexie shares a compelling story representing racial issues among communities and families in cultural areas today, and a boy’s journey to find who he truly is, while being torn between two cultures. In this novel the main character, young Junior finds himself truly understanding that he is more than just an indian. In order to know more about the plot behind the novel, author Alexie takes the reader into Junior’s perspective to bring the story to life and let the reader understand how racial issues along with family problems make a play into today’s society. The novel shows a countless number of situations Junior encounters that impact his life throughout the novel.

We each have a unique personality that no one else can match perfectly but our social identity is a way to connect to other through our similar characteristics. King (2012) states “Social identity is the way individuals define themselves in terms of their group membership” (pg. 428). We all have titles we carry with us like being a mother or father, a daughter or son, and even a sister or brother the list can go on and on. Within these individualities we have a

Arnold’s change of identity is shown through the author’s use of setting. At first, he lives in Wellpinit, an Indian reservation. On the reservation there is violence, poverty, and alcoholism. Arnold does not appreciate where he lives because his “reservation is located approximately one million miles north of [important] and two billion miles west of [happy]” (Alexie 30). Arnold does not like his culture, nor does he like his home. He thinks that his race is far from important and happy. This contributes to his identity crisis. He does not like his identity, but one thing that keeps him from forsaking it, is his