Native Americans are mostly judged by their addictions and the battles they fought. They are not normally judged by the hardships they had to face. The Absolutely True Diary of a Part Time Indian and Smoke Signals show that these struggles are real. In his book, The Absolutely True Diary of a Part Time Indian, and his movie, Smoke Signals, Sherman Alexie wrote about the challenges of being a Native American. Diary and Smoke Signals are similar because they both showed many family problems throughout the story lines. Also, they are similar in that the families faced difficulty with alcohol addiction. They differ because in Diary, the main character, Junior, adapts to his new school that has all white students while in Smoke Signals, Victor tries not to interact with anyone outside his race.
First, Diary and Smoke Signals’ characters have both had some difficult times dealing with family problems from abuse to death. In Smoke Signals, Victor’s dad, Arnold, physically abused Victor when he was a child. Immediately after Arnold hit Victor, Arnold said, “I didn’t mean to” (Smoke Signals). The abuse was a large factor into why Arnold left Victor when he was a child. However in Diary, there is case of abuse involving Rowdy, Junior’s friend. Rowdy’s father would constantly hit him. Rowdy would walk around with bruises and scars showing and he acted like he was proud of them. Junior from Diary also went through a hardship because his grandmother died when she was hit by a car.
Throughout the story, The Absolutely True Diary of a Part Time Indian by Sherman Alexie, Junior goes through many ups and downs. This story is about how Junior, an indian from the Spokane reservation, decides to go to Rearden, the school for non-indians because of how run-down his school is and has trouble fitting in. Some of the ways Junior dealt with those downs include his uncanny sense of humor, his love for his friends, and the want to fit in and prove he’s just as good as everyone else at his new school.
The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian is a book that depicts cultural differences; the issues of alcohol; and friendships in a harsh, yet humorous way. Junior, the main character of the book, stands out in many ways, both to the reader, and in the book itself. He is courageous, yet also emotional and smart.
This book, "The Absolutely True Diary of a Part Time Indian" by Sherman Alexie, is about a boy called Arnold Spirit aka Junior. He is a Native American that lives in an Indian Reservation. He isn't really satisfied with his life, since he's pretty poor, but he gets along. He doesn't really accept himself, since he has multiple medical problems, and he has been beaten up since he was little. When he starts to gain more friends in this new (American) school, he starts to like and accept himself more than before. In this book, "The Absolutely True Diary of a Part Time Indian" (by Sherman Alexie), the main theme is about Arnold trying to accept himself.
In ''The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian'', Arnold spirit, who is an Indian boy, lives on a Spokane Indian Reservation with alchoholic parents. Adding to that, he is a hydrocephalic, which has affected his speaking ability and he had to deal with being bullied and getting picked on in school. However, he wants to overcome these challenges and move on in life to something better, because he is dissatisfied with the situation he is in. Later in the story, he decides to go to a white school where he begins feeling like a part-time indian.
Arnold/Junior Spirit is a fourteen year old Spokane Indian who lives on a small reservation in Washington state. In the book The Absolutely True Diary of a part-Time Indian, Junior leaves his reservation for a primary white school called Reardan to find hope. He struggles with friendships, family, basketball, school work and identity through the year. His experiences on and off the reservation, are constantly changing his beliefs to become less racist and more positive. For example, Junior begins thinking that hope is barely reachable for him, but ends the book realizing that nothing stops him from having hope except how much he works for it.
Mentors are people who provide support, strength, and inspiration. Many people have a mentor in their life that they aspire to be like, and seek out for guidance. Mentors play a big role in many lives, including Junior's from The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie. Some of the biggest mentors for Junior are his parents, his Wellpinit teacher Mr. P and his Rearden basketball coach. If it weren't for these mentors inspiration and support, Junior wouldn't have taken some of the risks he does.
The Spoken tribe, like many other Native American tribes, suffered considerably due to alcoholism, poverty, and racism. In order to combat the dire state that he is in, Spoken Indian Arnold “Junior” Spirit decides to leave the reservation and go to Reardan, a school full of whites. Sherman Alexie’s novel The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian paints a picture of life where racism, poverty, and alcoholism affects Arnold Spirit as he journeys through a completely different society. His decision endangers him not only in his reservation but also at Reardan where he is ostracized for being the only Indian boy in a school full of white people. Despite these dangers, Arnold is still willing to reject his family tradition and go to Reardan because he has hopes of finding a fulfilling and hopeful life. Due to his willingness to go through with his action of going to Reardan despite the hardships, Arnold is able to march inexorably towards finding a fulfilling and hopeful life. Through his perseverance of physical and emotional hardships, and his willingness to leave his family legacy behind and go to Reardan, it is revealed the extent that man is willing to go to in order to achieve his goals.
Poverty hits children hardest in the world. When I was younger, the Armenians had faced the hard facts of poverty after they break up with the Soviet Union, war with Azerbaijan, and a devastating earthquake. My family moved into our motherland Armenia while our nation was going through these huge dramatic changes. Furthermore the poor economy and inflation destroyed numerous hopes and futures. In the novel, The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, by Sherman Alexie, Arnold Spirit, describes his hardships involving poverty living on Spokane reservation. The people on the reservation are stuck in a prison of poverty. They are imprisoned there due to lack of resources and general contempt from the outside world, so they are left with little chance for success. Like Arnold, I also went through hardships regarding poverty and education.
Do you think looking forward and trying to change a bad situation into a good one for having a better life is a wrong decision? The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-time Indian is a novel written by Sherman Alexie. The novel is about Arnold Spirit; everyone calls him Junior. He is a teenage boy with a tough life who lives with his family in poverty on a Spokane Indian reservation in Wellpinit, Washington. He hates living in poverty and wants something better for himself. “I feel like I might grow up to be somebody important. An artist”(6) he claims. His living conditions are horrible; he studies in a school with a lack of resources. He considered the different aspects of moving to Reardan, he struggled about leaving
The movie Smoke Signals is based on the series of short stories written by Sherman Alexie. Just like any movie, there is a meaning to it. Before this movie, when I thought of the phrase "Native American" I thought of things like feathers and societies that were impeccable. But after watching the movie, Smoke Signals, it portrays what being a Native American really means. It is not all fun and games. The protagonist, Victor Joseph, has many hard aspects of his life, but throughout it all he grows mentally. His personality in the beginning of the movie is mean and despicable, he is filled with wrath, but as the movie goes on his personality grows gradually. By the ending of the movie, he was a nicer and kinder.
In Sherman Alexie’s The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian (2007) a teenage boy named Junior, explains his struggle of breaking the cycle of his indigenous people and moving between an Indian American reservation (the ‘rez’) and a mainstream school in a town called Reardon. The protagonist explains, through first-person accounts, his life on the reservation and his experiences as he attempts to break the cycle of alcoholism and poverty that is imposed on him merely because he is an Indigenous American. One theme that remains constant throughout the novel is that of lack of hope that the Indians have for their futures, they see no need for dreams or hopes as, for them, there is no way that they can achieve any more than any of their ancestors. Another theme that is present through Part-Time Indian is poverty and the cycle of negative events that lead to it continuing. This leads to the Indigenous Americans having no hope. An extremely broad theme that is present in this novel is identity. Junior explains very simply how being Native American leads to his peoples’ inevitable poverty. There are many aspects in Part-Time Indian where some actions and habits are considered normal.
The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie is a novel about Arnold Spirit (Junior), a boy from the Spokane Indian Reservation who decides to attend high school outside the reservation in order to have a better future. During that first year at Reardan High School, Arnold has to find his place at his all-white school, cope with his best friend Rowdy and most of his tribe disowning him, and endure the deaths of his grandmother, his father’s best friend, and his sister. Alexie touches upon issues of identity, otherness, alcoholism, death, and poverty in order to stay true to his characters and the cultures within the story. Through the identification of the role of the self, identity, and social behavior
Adolescents experience a multitude of physical, cognitive, emotional, and social, and mental changes during a short span of years in their developmental journey to adulthood, and this transition period is full of many developmental changes and milestones. Some typical changes and milestones in an adolescent’s life include puberty, learning to drive, dating, developing new social relationships and social roles, cognitive changes, becoming sexually active, obtaining employment, and graduating high school. In addition to all of these changes in this tumultuous time of life, adolescents are identifying, developing, and coming to terms with their own sense of self, and learning about their identity becomes a priority. Teens and young adults must also address certain challenges that may arise in their lives such as bullying, drug and alcohol use, violence, sexual abuse, eating disorders, depression or other mood/mental health issues, and issues concerning sexuality, and gender identity. Sherman Alexie’s The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian is an engaging story that deals with many of the challenges that all adolescents face, and this novel also addresses challenges that are unique to those teens who may be grappling with issues that face minority cultures and communities as well.
The novel's second major setting is Reardan, an affluent, mostly-white town 22 miles away from the reservation in Wellpinit. Reardan is home to the high school where Arnold decides to transfer. Arnold's identity in Reardan is not directly related to his tribe or his family. He is known in Reardan not as "Junior," but as
Sherman Alexie book “The Absolutely True Diary of a Part – Time Indian” is a comical yet heartbreaking true story of an Indian teenage boy living on the reservation trying to figure out his own identity. Throughout the book the reader can see the identity struggles that the main character Arnold Spirit Jr (Junior) faces. Being on the reservation is both a home and a place Junior is ready to leave. Through Juniors illustrations and……