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

Imagine yourself with a disease in your head that causes people to make fun of you because you have a big head. Also, picture yourself living in a poor neighborhood where people only think about drinking alcohol and students cannot go beyond high school. Sherman Alexis, a writer from Wellpinit, Washington, wrote a book based on his own life, named The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian. In this book, he writes about a child named Arnold who was born with many medical problems. Arnold hopes to have a better future by becoming a cartoonist, so he can help his family. Many people from Wellpinit including Rowdy, his best friend, call Junior a traitor because he moved from his old school to have a better future. As a result of this, Arnold faces a severe form of discrimination at Reardan High School because he was the only Indian person who was studying there. Alexie as Arnold is an interesting character because it teaches us about dealing with challenges and helps to improve a person’s life. Alexie suggests that many people face serious challenges such as lack of education opportunities, alcoholism, the struggle of acceptance, and that the best way to overcome some of them are hope, forgiveness, and earning the trust of friends.

One of the main obstacles Junior overcomes is stereotypes. Junior is an Indian who lives on a reservation. Indians have many stereotypes that are towards them. For instance one stereotype is that they have no hope. Junior had a conversation with one of his teachers about his future, which involved him switching schools. Junior knew that if he stayed at the reservation high school he won’t be able to make a future for himself. So when his parents got home he asked them who has the most hope, “’White people, (Alexie45)’” his parents told him at the same time. Even

"Double-consciousness this sense of always looking at one 's self through the eyes of others, of measuring one 's soul by the tape of a world that looks on in amused contempt and pity" (Dubois, 8). W.E.B. Du Bois had a perfect definition of double-consciousness. The action of viewing one 's self through the eyes of others and measuring one 's soul. Looking at all of the thoughts good or bad coming from others. This is present in the main character of the book The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, by Sherman Alexie. The Absolutely True Diary is about a boy named Junior that is fourteen years old and living on the Spokane Reservation. Junior was born with too

The short story “Indian Education” by Sherman Alexie is about a boy who describes his life and how he was treated. The narrator describes his experience from first to twelfth grade. He was treated poorly at the beginning of the short story but later was acknowledged. An important theme that develops throughout Sherman Alexie’s “Indian Education” is that people often make wrong accusations about people from a specific race, which often leads to self-pity.

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.

For middle and lower class citizens educations seems like the primary way to succeed in life. Personally believe that my last statement is true. Richard Rodriguez also believed that and wrote about his experience with education. In his essay “The Achievement of Desire” he discusses things such as;How his parents are Mexican immigrants, barely speak English, and had little to no education. His essay hit home for me because I have experienced similar things in my life but not exactly the same. He also talks about how he felt that the only way of leaving behind the image of being uneducated and at the bottom of the ladder is to educate himself. So that’s what he did. Unfortunately during his educational years he forgot where he came from and abandoned his family and culture. He also discusses Hoggart’s essay “the use of Literacy” and his educational figure who is snobby know as the “scholarship boy”. Even though Rodriguez agreed and seen himself as this “scholarship boy” he knew that he wasn’t a perfect example of it. “The scholarship boy’s parents are poor and are uneducated as are my own”(341) he says but there is a difference him and the perfect scholarship boy. He noticed that he had pushed away his family but the scholarship boy is too blind to see that and only wants to succeed in life. You see myself in Rodriguez but I hope to stop the dissociation from my family and culture before it’s too late.

Rendon (1994) points out “students from underrepresented backgrounds often experience isolation, a lack of self-efficacy, and a lack of a sense of belonging in college contexts”(p. 48). Furthermore, one needs to take it one step back and realize that most students of color are much more likely to attend schools where most of their peers are poor or low-income. Therefore, socio economic status (SES) determines the education a person receives throughout K-12. Walpole (2004) also describes how “low SES parents are more likely to define success as a secure full-time job after graduating from high school. College attendance is not an expectation and often means enrolling in a community college or technical school when it does occur” (p. 47). When a student reaches the

This shows the false hope that everyone on the reservation suffers from. This causes everyone to stay the same because they feel that they could not achieve anything. Jr believes that ‘It sucks to be poor, and it sucks to feel that you somehow deserve to be poor .It an ugly circle and there’s nothing you can do about it”. Jr. believes that the poverty on the reservation is like a big old circle that will never go

In terms of how being educated will change the relationship of the educated and the family, this is seen in two different aspects. The Negro John had to work hard for his opportunity at education; He was full of aspiration to provide change for other children in his community. The Caucasian John was given his education, with the expectation to come back to the same town and become mayor. This essay shows a yin and yang relationship, meaning that while one John only wants to help his racial community, the other John wants nothing more than to move on to bigger and better things in life than to deal with negro individuals.

A new level of expectations and accomplishments came about Junior when he moved to Reardan. He finally had somewhere to have a fresh start where people didn’t know what he was capable of, nor did anyone have a presumption set for Junior. With this new chapter in his life and new beginnings Junior had become someone he never had a chance to be at the Reservation. Junior was smart, intellectual, confident, observant and had a completely different mentality. Thanks to some very important people at Reardan like Gordy and Junior’s basketball coach, they were able to mentor and drive Junior to be the person he was ultimately trying to become. Gordy was an intelligent young man in Junior 's life who was able to connect books to some life morals. Because of Gordy, Junior finally made his own realization that “if every moment of a book should be taken seriously, then every moment of life should be taken seriously as well” (95). At this moment in the book, Junior started to realize there was meaning to his life; why not enjoy it doing the things you love and are passionate about. One passion in

Many underprivileged groups such as, African Americans, Native Americans, Hispanics, just to name a few, often struggle to flourish within society due to lack of resources and lose their identity in assumption of their “inadequacy”. Sherman Alexie, a Native American activist, reveals the effects of poverty through the life of Victor, a young Native American living in a reservation, in his short story, “This is What it Means to Say Phoenix, Arizona”. Victor, right after he lost job, was notified about his father’s passing. Unable to have the sufficient funds to retrieve his father’s remains from Arizona, he travels alongside his former childhood friend, Tomas Builds-the-Fire. Their journey initially begins with a broken identity, but it brings awareness of how they were able to redefine whom they were despite of their critical situation. “This is What it Means to Say Phoenix, Arizona” depicts the harsh reality of the Native American’s poverty due to lack of resources, resulting in emotionally straining them and bringing social corrosion.

There are billions of people out there in the world. Every single person out there longs to be part of something bigger than themselves. They don’t want to be alone in such a big place as the earth we live on. They want to feel like they belong. This is exactly how Arnold Spirit Junior (The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian; Sherman Alexie) feels. He has spent his entire life feeling like an outsider. He longs to be a part of something bigger than himself, to be accepted.