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The Absolutely True Diary Of A Part Time Indian

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Trauma in The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian In Sherman Alexie’s novel, The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, Alexie shows trauma in a realistic and believable way. He has characters experience traumatic events that stay with them and affect them for a long time, and change said characters in a significant way. He also shows characters who share a common trauma, but react differently - to the point where some characters experience trauma from a situation while others do not. He makes it clear that trauma is significantly different for his characters and that their experiences are not the same. Through these means, Alexie expresses how trauma stays with people, but it is still different for everyone and that it can …show more content…

The reader can see another example of this with Rowdy, who experiences physical abuse, and therefore trauma, via his father. “[Rowdy’s] father is drinking hard and throwing hard punches, so Rowdy and his mother are walking around with bruised and bloody faces (16).” This affects how Rowdy behaves, as the reader sees him act rude and violent, having a “tough guy” persona. The reader also sees how he acts like the abuse does not matter to him; “‘It’s war paint,’ Rowdy always says. ‘It just makes me look tougher,’(16).” This clearly expresses that he is concerned with looking tough. The reader also sees him act violently in many situations. One example of this is when he smashes up a minivan with a shovel because he accidentally bumped into it (20). His violence is not just directed at inanimate objects. The reader sees him be violent to people too, specifically Junior. “...[Junior] then saw only a bright light as Rowdy smashed his elbow into [Junior’s] head and knocked [him] unconscious (146).” This shows the reader how trauma that Rowdy experiences ultimately lead him to act violently. The reader can tell this is because of his abuse faces at home that Rowdy acts like this, as Junior sheds light on it later, where he says, “And I knew that Rowdy’s father was probably going to beat the crap out of him for losing this game (196).” However, the reader can tell that this is not how he truly is because they see him slip up and drop

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