Arnold Spirit Analysis

Sherman Alexie, the author of “The Joy of Reading and Writing: Superman and me,” begins by informing the audience of the trials and hardships that he faced as an Indian boy on the Spokane reservation. Then Alexie shares with the audience, a story, about the first time he read which impacts the audience because it is personal and concise, which emotionally connects the audience and builds a foundation of understanding. The foundation built by the story, allows for Alexie to elaborate on the passion he had for reading and later reminds the audience that he lived on a reservation where the children were not expected to succeed, and even though he did and we find out children now have an “arrogant wonder,” (Page, 14) there are still the few that may adhere to old expectations. Alexie uses Pathos, Ethos, and Logos to assist in conveying this message.

Junior grows up on the reservation where he has been bullied his whole life for being different, only when leaving does he learn to accept his differences, and all aspects of his personality, both Arnold and Junior. When he first enters Reardan his birth name is introduced as Arnold, and when he tells people his name is junior they do not believe him. For example, when he first meets Penelope he introduces himself as Junior, then when his birth name is revealed he says this “She accused me of telling her my real name. Well, okay, it wasn't completely my real name ... "My name is Junior," I said. "And my name is Arnold. It's Junior and

1. Arnold Friend 's name can be interpreted as being "a friend." Also, by removing the r 's, his name becomes "an old fiend," which can be interpreted as a reference to a demon or even Satan. What other clues are there that Arnold is not who he claims to be?

He also deals with an Identity-crisis and not able to recognize which should relate to. As he says ''They stared at me, the Indian boy with the black eye and swollen nose, my going-away gifts from Rowdy. Those white kids couldn't believe their eyes. They stared at me like I was Bigfoot or a UFO. What was I doing at Reardan, whose mascot was an Indian, thereby making me the only other Indian in town? (Sherman 27). On his first at the new school, Arnold sees himself not only through his own eyes, but also through the eyes his classmates as well. He realizes that they don't see him as Junior the weirdo Indian, to them, he is something foreign. In this sense, Arnold starts seeing the way he sees himself and the way his classmates sees him.

Even after hanging out with a bunch of the American people, Arnold still feels attached to his own heritage. He loves his family and his best friend, Rowdy, and he feels that he needs to make amends with Rowdy. He was really scared that Rowdy would hate him and Junior would need to leave his old Indian self. Later he fixed his problems while playing "one-on-one (basketball) for hours..." (pg. 230) and they "didn't keep score" (pg. 230). Also, Junior cares about his family a lot. When two of them died in a row (his grandmother and sister), he didn't know what to do without them. He also thinks that Indians are forgiving of any kind of eccentricity (until the Americans came). "Gay people were seen as magical, too...Gay people could do anything. They were like Swiss army knives!" (pg. 155). He is pretty accepting of his heritage. He knows that he is Indian going to a white

Arnold Spirit Junior faces extremely vast challenges. His whole life is a horrific, never-ending hurricane. In other words, he went to Hell and came back. He just experiences one terrible event after another, like happiness isn’t good enough for him. As if he is rejected by the science of nature. Though, in all of his agony and grieving he still finds that one sliver of happiness that keeps him going. This is the only thing keeping him from giving up like

Arnold has a “stutter and lisp” (4), so people think that he’s weird. This shows that it is a struggle to fit into the community because he is one of the only people there that talk with a stutter and a lisp. He gets beat up at the reservation because he is different. He thinks that he looks weird because other people tell him what is wrong with him.

In this teen life book, Arnold Spirit (Junior) was born as an Indian, living on an Indian reservation, where racism existed. After Mr.P telling Arnold to get out of the reservation and to go to another school, Junior takes his advice and starts going to this white racist school named Reardan, where Junior lost his best friend Rowdy and gets bullied because he is an Indian. Later on, Junior doesn't get bullied anymore and starts making friends, and gets his best friend Rowdy back.

In the beginning of the story, Arnold Spirit also known as Junior explained what was wrong with him. Explained that he was born with “water on the brain”. Even after surgery, he would have been affected with serious brain damage and had a potential of dying. But he didn’t. You could say he was abnormal. He was talking about all his problems, he stutters and has a lisp when he talks. He talks about him get treated differently, even from a doctor who is white as it says in chapter 1. These are the reasons why Junior gets bullied, he’s Indian (brown skin color) and he stutters and has a lisp. Oscar, Junior’s dog was his best friend. Junior loved him more than anyone. But one day he was shot, by Junior’s dad because Oscar was sick and they couldn’t afford to bring him to the vet. Junior was

Another indication that Arnold Friend is the devil is his appearance. If Arnold was the devil he would have to hide what he looks like so Connie would not know who he really was. Arnold’s “whole face was a mask” (par 110) that looked “as if he had plastered make-up on his face” (par. 110). If Arnold Friend were the devil it would make sense that he would be wearing a mask to hide his devilish features. Arnold also was “wearing a wig” (par. 94) to hide his horns on top of his head. If he were the devil, then he would have horns and he tried to cover them up with his wig. Connie saw “how pale the skin around his eyes was, like holes that were not in shadow but instead in light” (par 55). The devil would have strange-looking eyes and this would

As a young child growing up in the late 90s/early 00s, Hey Arnold helped me become a more culturally and socially accepting individual through the consistent exposure of different ethnicities and family structures. For example, Arnold’s grandparents housed two immigrants Mr. Hyunh from Vietnam and Oskar Kokoshka from Czechoslovakia. These two men from two entirely different cultural backgrounds were able to share a home, as well as guide Arnold through several issues he faced growing up. Arnold showed a full capacity of love and acceptance for these men’s diverse race and backgrounds. Another example of the ethnic diversity in Hey Arnold is Arnold’s friends. His best friend Gerald, a young sporty African American boy, Phoebe a young Japanese-American girl, and his Jewish friend Harold are prime examples of the cultural and racial diversity the show displayed. None of these characters were treated poorly or persecuted based on race or culture. In the episode “Harold’s Bar Mitzvah”, Harold is forced to abandon his friends’

Junior grows up on the reservation where he has been bullied his whole life for being different, only when leaving does he learn to accept his differences, and all aspects of his personality, both Arnold and Junior. When he first enters Reardan his birth name is introduced as Arnold, and when he tells people his name is junior they do not believe him. Consequently, when he first meets Penelope he introduces himself as Junior, then when his birth name is revealed he says this “She accused me of telling her my real name. Well, okay, it wasn't completely my real name ... "My name is Junior," I said. "And my name is

In Golamco’s fictional town of Breakneck, we are introduced to story of the two extremes in “performing” the Asian identity; Chester, the man in limbo, who poses all the “facial features, skin color…stature and build”

Throughout the novel, The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, our protagonist, Arnold Spirit, goes through a lot of changes. He loses a bunch of people and things. In the beginning, he loses what little kindness his tribe gave him for changing schools. He loses a lot more but he also gains a lot through those changes. 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 whole story is we all go through grief differently.

    First,  I would like to start off by saying sorry to Arnold Spirit because “I can apologize to [him].” It all started when he threw his Geometry textbook at me. At that moment, I