The Absolutely True Diary Of A Part Time Indian

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.

In his junior year, Cedric is admitted to the Minority Introduction to Engineering and Science summer program at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He believes this is the start of a new life for him, but when summer arrives he finds the classes much more difficult than his fellow MIT students who attended better schools and were better versed in math and science. Though he makes friends at MIT, he also sees that his ghetto background sets him apart from them. At the end of the program, Cedric is told by faculty director Leon Trilling that he would not be welcome in MIT as a college student. This infuriates Cedric, and he finds solace in returning to Ballou that fall despite offers to attend better schools for his Senior year.

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.

As Diary of a Part Time Indian progresses and Junior enrolls in Reardan, he continues to belief that he does not deserve hope, unlike the kids at Reardan, but not necessarily because of his race anymore. Resulting from his choice to leave the reservation, Junior struggles to fit in at Reardan, but not leave his identity behind, since for him living on the reservation is entwined with being poor.

Another mentor in Junior's life is his Wellpinit teacher Mr. P. Mr.P demonstrates great understanding, encouragement and regret towards Junior and his people. Mr. P’s understanding was shown shortly after a mishap where Junior throws a textbook at him in frustration, after finding his mother's name written in it. Instead of getting angry at Junior he is rather understanding. He knows Junior only threw it in anger at the fact he can't learn from new curriculums, Junior is someone who wants more in his education, this is seen when he says “And let me tell you, that old, old, old decrepit geometry book hit my heart with the force of a nuclear bomb. My hopes and dreams floated up in a mushroom cloud.” Instead of getting mad, Mr. P understands Junior's want for education. Lastly, Mr.P is the one who recognized Junior's intelligence and pushes him to find hope in a new school. This was shown when he says “Son,’ Mr.P said. ‘You're going to find more and more hope the farther and farther you walk away from this sad, sad, sad reservation.” (Alexie 43) Thanks to Mr. P’s encouragement Junior makes the decision to attend Reardan, where he meets wonderful people,

Acknowledged in both novels, Junior and Jin’s spontaneous actions leave them both friendless and bruised. In Junior’s case, this meant ditching the reservation’s schooling system and finding one that surpasses the education he was taught. In the spur of the moment, Junior decides to do just that and attend an all-white school in the neighboring town. Getting the courage to tell his best friend, Junior braces himself for Rowdy’s reaction. Denial embedded his friend’s senses; remoteness then trickled its way through his head

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

TreVon was rushing to get out the door. He knew if he missed the buss one more time he was going to be in big trouble. He’s older brothers Luther and Jaron never favored him anyway. So they did not care if he missed the bus. TreVon was very smart kid but he wanted to be cool so he did not care about his grades. The boy's mother worked 13 hour shifts at a old mill house. His mother Mary did not like TreVon outside during the late hours of the night. Today was the day he probably wished he

Not only is Junior unpopular and alienated, but the victim of taunts and bullying as well. Furthermore, he’s considered a traitor after he transfers to Reardon. At Reardon, he’s called names and endures racial jokes until he finally finds acceptance through basketball and surprisingly finds friends with similar interests. Ultimately, Junior comes to the “huge realization” that not only does he belong to the Spokane Indian tribe, but to no less than 13 additional groups (Basketball players, cartoonists, bookworms, and sons to name a few). It is the first time he knows that he will be “OK”, sending a positive message to readers that identify with his struggles. By reading about characters similar to themselves, young adults can see that their challenges are not unique and are shared by other adolescents (Bucher & Hinton, 2009)

Despite of all the doubt and hopelessness, Junior had a certain characteristic that enabled him to overcome all the conflicts within his community: hope. Unlike the other Indian’s in his Reservation, Junior wasn 't going to lower himself to everyone else 's level; he was going to learn to overcome what no one else thought they could.

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

Junior does this because all of the other kids families at Reardan are exceptionally wealthy and he doesn’t want to feel different or possibly inferior to the others. He also worries that the other kids will not accept him as a friend if they find out he is poor. When he finally reveals that he is poor to Penelope, the response he gets is not what he expects. She is supportive of him and Junior describes it as “I figured she was going to march out of my life right then. But she didn't.

how different he is. “I was born with water on the brain,” he says. That’s the first sentence of his story. But Junior doesn’t want you to think of him as handicapped. Call it an irony, or call it one of the best things about this book,

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.

In an effort to expand his horizons and break out of the mold the reservation creates, Junior, the protagonist decided to attend school off the reservation. In Sherman Alexie’s The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, the reservation schools only taught kids “how to give up” (42). Junior was told by Mr. P, a white teacher at his school, that if he stayed on the reservation, they were “going to kill” (42) him because he cannot fight forever. Junior has always been beat up for looking different. Additionally, as a child, Junior “fought off brain surgery” (42), “seizures” (42), and “drug addicts” (42) because he had hope. Now, he is the only one with hope left on the reservation, which means he needs to leave the reservation and “go somewhere where other people have hope” (42). Mr. P’s words stuck with Junior so he asked his parents’ permission to attend a school off the reservation, Reardan. It was surprising any Indian would leave the reservation and many, especially Junior’s best friend, Rowdy, thought he had betrayed them. He was going to attend a primarily white school and leave the reservation behind. In their minds, he is no longer an Indian. Junior even says, “I always felt like a stranger” since “I was half Indian in one place and half white in the other” (118). But attending another school cannot change your entire identity.