Sherman Alexie Part Time Indian Analysis

In his book the Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, Sherman Alexie portrays a teenage boy, Arnold Spirit (junior) living in white man’s world, and he must struggle to overcome racism and stereotypes if he must achieve his dreams. In the book, Junior faces a myriad of misfortunes at his former school in ‘the rez’ (reservation), which occurs as he struggles to escape from racial and stereotypical expectations about Indians. For Junior he must weigh between accepting what is expected of him as an Indian or fight against those forces and proof his peers and teachers wrong. Therefore, from the time Junior is in school at reservation up to the time he decides to attend a neighboring school in Rearden, we see a teenager who is facing tough consequences for attempting to go against the racial stereotypes. The decision to attend a white school is a tough one and Junior understands that for him to survive and to ensure that his background does not stop him from attaining his dreams; he must battle the stereotypes regardless of the consequences. In this light, race and stereotypes only makes junior stronger in the end as evident on how he struggles to override the race and stereotypical expectations from his time at the reservation to his time at Rearden.

No matter the place in the world there are always leaders and followers, but sometimes there are people who take their own route. Within The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, Junior is that person who takes his own route. This is because of all the conflicts surrounding him. Junior’s decisions were impacted by the conflicts around him because he wanted to try his best to escape the hostile environment he was in. When people are facing adversity they don’t want to accept what is happening they want to fight back. The actions everyone makes to fight back are influenced by what will help them get away from their problems. Junior’s conflicts heavily encouraged him to take risky actions that could’ve led to a positive or negative outcome.

The novel The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, by Sherman Alexie retells the accounts of Junior’s coming of age. Many of his perspectives evolve in the novel including that of his reservation, Reardan and his identity. Throughout his journey he endures tough losses of loved ones but is supported by the love of his family and friends. His daunting pursuit of hope turns into much more as he discovers his true identity.

Courage is exemplified in the novel by, “They wanted a better life for my sister and me. My sister is running away to get lost, but I am running away because I want to find something.” (page:46) “You’ll be the first one to ever leave the reservation this way,” Mom said. (page:47) Junior attending Reardan an all-white school even though, he know want he would be known as traitor on the reservation.

Then, he later realized that he “ had challenged the alpha dog and was now being rewarded for it.” This evidence implies that Junior’s experience of being bullied by Roger triggered him to stand up for himself. His hope and perseverance while standing up for himself and others, led to a greater outcome. Now, Junior was being respected as a result of him having hope and standing up himself; he was

Junior being born on the Reservation has always been poor and put down by others. He has had a horrible life with pain coming from a new direction each day but has coped with it that is why he is still alive today to write this book. Although he may or may not admit it, the ways he coped with his life were not great after all. When faced with a

In his short story “Indian Education,” Sherman Alexie uses character to suggest that even though the world is seen to be equal, but bigotry and discrimination still exists. Alexie uses the stories of his main character, Victor, to express the constant prejudice in the world.

“None of those guys punched me or got violent. After all, I was a reservation Indian, and no matter how geeky and weak I appeared to be, I was still a potential killer.” (63) This segment not only shows the racism of the people he is now surrounded with, but the way Junior uses the first person exemplifies that even he thinks he is a potential killer.

Despite these issues that the protagonist faces, he remains courageous and he continues life. At school, he proves to be a very good leader, and he does well in all his classes. At home, he deals with the absences of his parents very well. As a sixth grader, he is steadily maturing, and he draws from his own Indian traditions to stand up for what he believes is

The book uses a teenagers perspective to exhibit these struggles. This helps teenagers connect to the book as even they might have perspectives similar to of Junior’s (main character). Both the authors use similar literary devices like external conflict, internal conflict and characterization to keep the reader interested in the text. In both the texts one can see that the thematic idea conveyed is that courageous people don’t roar about their strength, but they use it to benefit the community as a whole. Courage is

Junior doesn’t retaliate against the insults and Junior takes out his anger for the world in his comics and even on himself. At points, Junior thinks he’s “not tough” (68) and the “opposite of (a) warrior” (75) This only gets better after Junior learns that the judgements of others doesn’t affect him, through Rowdy’s friendship. Unfair judgement from others, and even self judgement, happens, and so people should just ignore

The book makes you think a lot, about how it is important to pick the right friends and crowd to hang out with. It shows how it may seem like you have everything; and things are getting better, but suddenly it can all come crashing down with one poor

Junior stated, “I thought that she’d start paying more attention to me and that everybody else would notice and then I’d become the most popular dude in the place. ”(81) He was obviously the only Indian guy in school and didn’t have many friends at all,except 2 people,Roger and Penelope. This situation turned into wanting more friends,less enemies,and wanting to impress Penelope. Junior was obviously poor and lived on the reservation.

Sherman Alexie writes the story “Indian Education” using a deadpan tone to build and connect the years of the narrator 's life together in an ironic way. Alexie is able to utilize irony through the use of separate, short sections within the story. The rapid presentation of events, simple thoughts, and poetic points made within the story enable the reader to make quick connections about the narrator’s life to draw more complex realizations. The art that Alexie uses to write this very short story is poetic in nature through the meaning and structure of his writing. By the fact that the reader can draw deeper conclusions about the narrator 's life from Alexie’s writing is evident that his writing is poetic.

as the novel ended Rowdy and junior face each other in a tough basketball game Reardan high wins with a breeze Juniors sister and grandma both pass away soon after the game his grandma was hit my a drunk driver his sister left on a hot pan and a curtain was blown in which caused the trailer to set on fire and they didn 't wake up because where drunk. This caused Junior and Rowdy to see that they needed each other in order to survive so once again they became best friends. This novel is so realistic everything from living on a reservation to having family pass away is things you would see in our everyday atmosphere. This is why the book compares to no other novel I 've ever read. It 's so funny and realistic, but it can teach you a valuable