Junior the protagonist of True Diary of a Part Time Indian by Sherman Alexie is currently struggling with an abundance of issues ranging all the way from a poverty driven home to medical issues he was born into. It seems to me, that all of juniors problems he was born into and unable to change for example he was born into poverty and he was born indian, setting him up for the racism he would soon enough face and he was born with too much cerebral fluid in his brain. That's not to say all of his problems came along with birth and he was just born to be plagued with, but majority of them stemmed from birth. I believe that Junior a.k.a Arnold Spirit’s main issue in the novel would be his poverty because it affects every aspect of his life
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.
F. Scott Fitzgerald once said “First you take a DRINK then the drink takes a drink, then the drink takes you.” Later Fitzgerald capitulated and died of a heart attack due to being an alcoholic the last 2 years of his life. The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian written by Sherman Alexie talks about a 14 year old Indian boy changing his life. He goes to a white school, and changes into a different person throughout the story. The story talks about other real life dilemmas, like death and alcohol. There are multiple themes that are present throughout the story, but one theme that protrudes is that alcoholism kills.
Junior has to live his life in poverty, not having enough money to pay for treatment for his dying dog and sometimes not even eating dinner. Junior has to deal with losing people that were important to him. Junior lost his best friend, his grandmother, his dad’s best friend, and his sister. Despite poverty and his many losses, Junior’s most significant challenge was not fitting in. Wherever he was, Junior never fit in. On the rez, he was the kid with hydrocephalus and got bullied (by children and adults) who made fun of his medical condition. Once he changed to Rearden, it was no better. Roger “the giant” and his group of friends bullied Junior by calling him names like “Chief” and
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
Finding Your Dreams :Hopes and Dreams in The Absolute True Diary of a Part-time Indian
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.
“Each funeral was a funeral for all of us”: Notions of Race, Identity and Mortality in Sherman Alexie’s The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian
Adolescents experience a developmental journey as they transition from child to adult, and in doing so are faced with many developmental milestones. Physical, cognitive, social and emotional changes are occurring during this tumultuous stage of life, and making sense of one’s self and identity becomes a priority. Sherman Alexie’s The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian addresses the challenges of adolescence in an engaging tale, but deals with minority communities and cultures as well.
He shows his courage, brains, and emotions in different ways throughout the entire book. He shows his courage when he beats Rowdy in basketball, his brains when he stood up to his teacher and corrected him, and his emotions when mourning for himself, his tribe, and everyone they had lost. Even though Junior may not seem like the best role model, nevertheless, we can all learn something from him, and about how, even though he had a hard life, he is still fighting, and isn’t giving
This teacher believed in Junior because he was different from the rest of the kids. Junior stuttered, had seizures, and had extra teeth, but he was one of the most percipient kids there. Reardan High School was a white school with the small town kids. This was a big change for Junior but he did it either way because he had to make a change and save himself. No one else on the reservation would’ve done something as big as Junior. Once starting school at Reardan, he had to push through. He wouldn’t make friends and felt lost in a school full of white people. His intelligence was always scintillating throughout those classroom
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
The struggle between being an individual and a member of a community is a constant struggle of life. It is shown in various media such as photos and films. In addition, the struggle is often the conflict in books. The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian is a prime example of a book that showcases this internal conflict. It’s a very relatable subject that many people including myself have faced. The struggle between being an individual and a member of a community can be shown in pictures, books and real life. First of all, this picture is a great representation of the quote. The light grey figure symbolizes someone branching outside their community. The black figures symbolize the community, as you can see they’re all identical and
The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian is the story of Junior’s journey to discovery of self. Like many teens, he finds himself
At first Junior didn't like himself; he was constantly beaten up (but saved by his
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.