How much would you sacrifice for your hope? What is your hope? Would you leave your only best friend behind? How about the place that you grew up with all your life? Or be looked at as a betrayer to everyone that you know? These are some things Junior had to deal with and do to find hope for himself in a world where he was expected to fail. The book, The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie is a story about Junior who is an American Indian living on the reservation but is trying to find a better life for himself. After his high school teacher confessed that the reservation was made to “kill the Indian and save the man”, Junior decides to go to Rearden high school which is out of the reservation and is an “all-white …show more content…
“But it also reminded me of the people who were not going to be okay. It made me think of Rowdy. I missed him so much. I wanted to find him and hug him and beg him to forgive me for leaving” (pg 174). This shows that Junior misses his best friend, he left the reservation school to find more opportunities but while doing that he had to affect his relationship with his only best friend from his whole life, Rowdy. This also shows that Junior and Rowdy are different, Junior went to find an opportunity while Rowdy stayed and gave up on looking for a better life, if Junior was to stay because Rowdy did not want him to go, Junior would have not found the hope that Reardan gave him. Apart from Rowdy, everyone else on the reservation also saw him as a traitor and white lover. “‘You'll be the first one to ever leave the rez this way,’ Mom said. ‘The Indians around here are going to be angry with you.’ Shoot, I figure that my fellow tribal members are going to torture me” (pg 38). This shows that the people on the reservation who he has lived with most of his life see him as a betrayer for going to Reardan, he is going to be the first person to leave to find hope and because of that people will dislike him. This also shows that if Junior was to follow the people of the reservation, he would not have found what Reardan has, he would not …show more content…
“I wasn't expected to be good so I wasn't. But in Reardan, my coach and the other players wanted me to be good. They needed me to be good. They expected me to be good. And so I became good” (pg 143). This shows how the different expectations that people have for Junior on the reservation compared to Rearden, one expected him to fail and the other expected him to succeed. This also shows the different mindsets of the people in both places, in the reservation people already gave up just like what Mr.P said but in Reardan they had more hope which is what changed Junior to be from mediocre to a better player, it was the confidence and that people believed in him. In Reardan, the basketball team has more motivation/hope than in the reservation, it was also the words and not only the expectations that helped him be better. “‘I can do it,’ I said to Coach, to my teammates, to the world. ‘You can do it,’ Coach said. ‘I can do it.’ ‘You can do it.’ ‘I can do it.’ Do you understand how amazing it is to hear that from an adult? Do you know how amazing it is to hear that from anybody? It's one of the simplest sentences in the world, just four words, but they're the four hugest words in the world when they're put together. You can do it. I can do it” (pg 151). This shows how these simple words affect and motivate Junior a lot, in
Mr. p was one of the biggest inspirations to juniors actions. If it weren't for him Junior would be stuck at the rez forever and most likely become like all the other adults, drunk and angry. When junior began his journey to achieve his goals at Reardan it was very difficult. He was the only “different” kid there. Different meaning he was the only Indian in a school of white kids.
When Junior goes to this school people treat him differently he acts differently he even goes by a different name. He doesn’t want to forget about his heritage and the people he left behind but he feels like this school will get him on a better path for life. He also feels a little bit guilty about leaving his friends and family from the reservation behind and moving on in life. You can see this in a quote from the book "My name is Junior," I said. "And my name is Arnold.
When he went on the first day he handled it better than I thought he would. In the time that it was set people didn’t like indians or colored people. Junior is the bravest person in this story by far. Knowing that it’s an all white school and you’re the darkest there but still wants to go to get the education you need shows courage.
Junior’s father’s drinking problems and the lack of funds to afford decent living conditions on the reservation are prevalent issues throughout the book that provide an insight into this theme. This proves that the author has written this novel to exhibit the hardships of those in poverty are detrimental to a child’s future. First, the novel shows the hardships of poverty by showing the discrimination made against Junior. On page 86, Junior states he “remembered when I [he] used to be a human being,” (Alexie 86).
As the novel progresses Junior is keen on going to the school that is separated from his reservation called Reardon High. Even though Junior wants to go to this school so he can achieve a better education, much backlash came from Juniors tribe as it seemed as if he was abandoning his culture. Juniors started at Rearden very worried about what everyone would think of him, and on his first day he punched a white kid in the face for telling an insensitive joke to him. Junior went home feeling confident in what he did but later started to realize that him trying to prove himself to everyone was unnecessary.
(Alexie 80), and “Do you know what happens to retards on the rez? We get beat up. At least once a month.” (Alexie 4). These quotes shows how and why Junior has a tough time achieving his goals not only because of the problems in Rearden but also because of his hometown.
Junior loses a lot of friends and family at the young age of fourteen. He gets bullied because he was born with too much cerebral spinal fluid inside his skull, but he has his best friend Rowdy there to help him. Junior realizes that he needs to leave the reservation to get a better life for himself. He goes to a new school off the
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.
It took a decent amount of time for Junior to become comfortable at Reardan. The first couple weeks he went there it was a time of adversity for him because he was like no one else there, and no one really appreciated that. Junior struggled most at Reardan his first day or two there, and the reader knows this when he says, “All of those pretty… white girls ignored me…. Most of the white boys ignored me, too” (Alexie 63). The reader is able to learn that Junior was heavily ignored at Reardan when he first started going there, and it ended up impacting his later decisions.
Sherman Alexi points out the fact that growing up in poverty can affect morale,resources,and relationships. And all of these issues can lead to low self esteem and mental health issues which Junior will try to balance constantly. Junior struggles with morale because of the poverty he grew up in. Junior is a teen who grew up on the rez in a poor household, this caused Junior to feel hopeless as he believed that poverty was a cycle and that he couldn't get out of. “Poverty doesn't give you strength or teach you lessons about perseverance.
His sister had a conflict with the world also, she had dreams of being a writer but nobody cared. This conflict reveals to Junior that people on the reservation aren’t given chances in life so he has to
Faced with many obstacles from poverty to racial stereotypes, Junior must override them if he is to make his life better than that of fellow Indians. Interestingly, rather than letting the obstacles hold him back Junior understands that his destiny is in his own hands and he must celebrate who he is even if it means fighting. In the end, we see a boy who have managed to overcome all hardships to get to the top, even if it means making tough choices such as changing schools, therefore is could be seen that race and stereotypes only made Junior
In his double life in Reardan and on the reservation, he feels “like a magician slicing himself in half, with Junior living on the north side of the river and Arnold living on the south,” (p. 60-61) “I was half Indian in one place and half white in the other. It was like being Indian was my job, but it was only part-time.” (p.118) Just as his absolutely true identity includes both Junior and Arnold, the divided extremes he describes often turn out to be hazy. Roger, the Reardan student who greets Junior in the schoolyard with a cruel racist joke, becomes a sympathetic friend and role model; Rowdy is both Junior’s greatest friend and his worst enemy, and hates him because he loves him so abundantly. Things like the basketball game Reardan wins against Wellpinit becomes both a glorious victory and a shameful moral loss for Junior.
I Took the ball right out of [Rowdy’s] hands.” (192) This shows how Junior’s perseverance helps him overcome the obstacle of beating Rowdy. Furthermore, Junior perseverance also allows him to overcome poverty. After being in poverty for his whole life, Junior realizes that, “It sucks to be poor, and it sucks to feel that you somehow deserve to be poor,” and as he realizes this, he transfers schools to Reardan.
Similarities and Differences on the Reservation and Reardon From the book “The Absolutely True Diary of a Part Time Indian '' by Sherman Alexie shows many different examples of similarities and differences, Junior has had many different experiences with his time at Reardan and his time at Wellpenit. Junior's freshman year he has moved schools and is in a mostly white environment, which is new for him, because he is from a school full of Indians kids. There are many similarities and differences between Juniors life on the reservation and his life at Reardan. To begin, there are similarities on the reservation and at the white school, Reardan.