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Summary Of The Absolutely True Diary Of A Part Time Indian And Smoke Signals

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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.

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