Shawn Lawton
Alex Rodriguez
Academic Literature
4/21/2023
Opportunities and success
Do all people have an equal chance in life? No, there are many things that can hold somebody back. In The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, a Novel by Sherman Alexie it speaks about the theme of opportunity and success. The protagonist Junior takes an opportunity to have a better education at a school outside of his community. By doing this he is able to see how the environment and education around someone can impact their opportunities and success in life. Sherman Alexis portrays the animosity that people can face when striving for success such as when Junior is attacked on Halloween, Roger starting problems with Junior, and Junior's realization
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This can be due to a multitude of reasons, some being jealousy, hatred,or stopping someone just because they can. In the text it states, “They didn't beat me up too bad. I could tell they didn't want to put me in the hospital or anything. Mostly they just wanted to remind me that I was a traitor. And they wanted to steal my candy and the money.” (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 takes into account that the people who beat him up didn’t do it to hurt him physically but hurt him to convey a message that not only is he a traitor but they will prevent him from getting what he wants in life. This quote shows how the environment around someone can hold them back from becoming …show more content…
This is due to the fact that people will make assumptions about someone without ever getting to know them. In the text it states, “Did you know that Indians are living proof that ******* **** buffalo?" I felt like Roger had kicked me in the face. That was the most racist thing I'd ever heard in my life. Roger and his friends were laughing like crazy. I hated them. And I knew I had to do.” (Alexie 64), and “And let's face it, most of the white boys ignored me, too. Hut there were a few of those Reardan boys, the big jocks, who paid special attention to me. 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. So mostly they called me names. Lots of names.” (Alexie 63). These quotes are about Junior being talked about in negative ways. The joke was meant to be malicious and offend Junior. This quote shows how presumptions or stereotypes can foster problems for someone striving for success as example when Roger says a stereotypical joke about Junior even though they have never met before. These quotes shows when someone is in an environment they don't belong in it can make problems for
The differences didn't stop junior he continued to fight on despite the glares and judgments he received from others. Junior kept his head held high and kept fighting on and following his dreams. Although not everything was fixed, he also went through an emotional crisis. A few of his family members passed away and this brought him down, he was so depressed he was contemplating to give away everything he had earned. But a voice in the back of his head insisted that he didn't.
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.
One afternoon, while Junior is sitting on his porch, a local teacher from Junior’s school visits him. He gives Junior hope and begins warning him to move somewhere where he can’t give up because everyone around him has already broken down. “...you have to take your hope and go somewhere where other people have hope.” (43) This lights the fire in Junior where he realizes he needs to change everything for his survival or he will crumble.
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.
He is a poor Indian going to a middle-class white kid school, but there is more to that. At the reservation there are these unspoken rules, if someone talks badly or insults you, you have to fight them, that is the first one on that list. Getting into fights is normal at Wellpinit but at Rearden, everyone is all talk. In the book, a kid named Roger and his friends were making fun of Junior so he punches Roger. Roger is taken aback because no one at Rearden actually gets into fistfights.
One is able to see how Junior realizes that he too has to leave the Rez with the hope that he still has. Natives have lost hope, and with staying on the reservation this would eventually leave them to “death”. The act of Mary leaving the Rez shows how valued the influence
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.
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. How race and stereotypes made
Junior faces bullying in his life. He has had many health problems which lead to bullying. Junior is scared of going to Reardan because it is a white school and he is scared that he’s going to get bullied for being Indian. Junior is also going through hard times and is facing unhappiness from bullying. Junior feels isolated when he leaves Rowdy because Rowdy
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
In “How to Fight Monsters,” Junior also has to deal with people poking fun at his race and stereotyping him around school. The two characters also both come from minority backgrounds and grew up in unusual circumstances, relative to most kids. Growing up on an Indian reservation and in a rundown city apartment with no father will lead to different views and takes on life for the two main characters. Overall, both short stories feature characters that share challenges, racial stereotyping, and unusual
They also discuss how things are difficult on the rez now that Junior is going to school in Reardan. Junior discusses things of importance all the time so he is not conforming to rule three of the Code of Conduct.
Junior, a Native American child living on a reservation full of poverty has had many occurrences where the identity of the character has been trialed by a conflict in the story. Junior has been struggling throughout the novel trying to figure out his identity and where he belongs. At first, Junior tried fitting in the reservation with all the other Indians. Then he wanted to change and tried to fit in with the kids at Reardan. And lastly, he tried to figure out how to fit in with both the Natives on the reservation and kids at Reardan.