Natalia Kasperek
Mr. Rodriguez
Academic Literature
21 April 2023
Individual vs. Community Never leaving a fixed mindset will lead to failure. The young adult fiction novel, The Absolutely True Diary of A Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie illustrates this when the readers follow the main protagonist, Junior, and his struggle as he moves from living in poverty at the Spokane reservation to going to an all-white school and being provided with new possibilities. Junior is influenced by both his old and new community causing him to have to change his obligations and feelings towards each environment. In The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie, the author discusses the theme that “a person’s decisions impact themselves,
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People who lack resources will struggle to succeed in their environments. While learning about Junior, his culture, and the reservation, the readers are presented with different factors which show that living at this reservation was not easy for the people as they faced many hardships such as poverty, alcoholism, and a lack of utilities. Alexie Sherman presents this on page 31 when she says, “This book belongs to Agnes Adams … Agnes Adams is my mother. … So that means my mother was born an Adams and she was still an Adams when she wrote her name in the book. And she was thirty when she gave birth to me. Yep, so that means I was staring at a geometry book that was at least thirty years older than I was. I couldn’t believe it.” This may also show just how much of a lack of supplies the reservation contained and the poverty in which they were forced to live in, as Junior feels outraged and realizes how behind the education system is. This causes the students to have a lower level education and instead of succeeding in life and getting a good career, the school causes them to be ignorant of the education system. Especially since teachers at this reservation are negligent, and careless about the students and their education. Junior’s outburst caused not only Junior to thrive for change but …show more content…
Junior often struggles with trying to figure out his identity both at the reservation and Rearden. However, as Junior grows and goes along his path to Rearden, there are times when he finds his individuality and becomes his own person. After Grandma Spirit passes away, we learn from Junior, “But I was also the kid who’d just lost his grandmother. And everybody knew that losing my grandmother was horrible. So they all waved the white flag that day and let me grieve in peace. And after that, they stopped hassling me whenever they saw me on the rez. I mean, I still lived on the rez right? … So I was still a part of the rez,” (Alexie, 160). Here Junior finally gets to be his own person as he finally doesn’t have anyone bothering him and everyone accepts that no matter what school he attends, he is still a part of the reservation. When everyone left Junior alone, they felt empathy towards Junior especially since they all probably knew Grandma Spirit as she was very well known amongst the reservation. Since Grandma Spirit was so popular, she was known for bringing people together and forming a closer community. She brought so many people together when she was alive, and she brought even more people together when she passed away. So many people struggled with grief at this time and they had an understanding of what Junior is going through, probably understanding that his grief is even larger due
One internal expectation for Junior was him never giving up. Junior leaving for Rearden was a part of his internal expectation of fighting against the external expectations. “I had to add my hope to somebody else’s hope. I had to multiply hope by hope” (43). He left the reservation in order to help his outcome of never giving up.
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.
This quote shows how Juniors goes through stuggles with money because nobody wants to hire a “Resevation Indian boy”. This helps present how hard it is for a avrage kid on the reservation get a job so they would struggle with money because of this
The continuous loss of relatives is too harsh for a boy, so Alexie uses a kind of “slight sorrow” to let Junior realize the weakness of life in the face of death. In addition, while cleaning the cemetery later, Junior says, “Reservations were meant to be prisons, you know? Indians were supposed to move onto reservations and die. We were supposed to disappear. But somehow or another, Indians have forgotten that reservations were meant to be death camps.”
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).
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
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.
Junior feels as if he’s lost everything, like all Indians lose everything. Junior says “We lost our native land, we lost our languages, we lost our songs and dances. We lost each other. We only know how to lose and be lost. ”(Alexie 173)
“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.
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
He realizes that his team has numerous economic and social advantages. Junior’s ability to address topics like poverty, racism and bullying with humor is a significant characteristic of his voice. For Junior, as well as his friends Rowdy and Penelope, part of growing up is recognizing that the world is more complicated than a strict division of opposites, it’s possible to be more than one thing—part of countless different “tribes”—is what enables him to unify his split identity and, as someone destined to travel beyond the reservation, navigate the world both figuratively and
Ultimately, this maintains the hope that defines Junior as extraordinary at the novel’s beginning. Finally, Junior adjusts to his sister’s death by surrounding himself with hope. Unlike after his grandmother 's death, Junior immediately returns to school after his sister’s death to escape the monotonous drunken and depressed state inside community in Wellpinit. He is surprised to find a genuine concern and
It is a very emotional scene, showing a change in identity. Junior wants to be himself, but also to go out and to seize amazing opportunities beyond the reservation. Junior decides to do both. He stays on the rez, but also commits to going to school in Reardan, an all-white town outside the reservation. People aren’t born strong - they become strong.
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