In Sherman
Alexie's The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, The main
character Arnold “Junior” Spirit goes through a lot of highs and lows
psychologically. In the first few chapters of the book, Junior describes how
miserable his life was compared to most Indians in the reservation and how in
general Indians live a very poor and miserable life compared to people who live
outside of the reservation. Later on, when he starts going to a new school
outside of the reservation, he goes through a way new experience that makes him
see life in a more positive way but also experiences one of the worst times of
his life because of how bad life is at the reservation.
While living and going to school in
the reservation, the main thing that makes Junior's life very sad and miserable
is his health condition. He was born
with “water in the brain”(Alexie, 1) which is
a condition that requires surgery. After Junior survived his surgery he
grew up with a very big head, wearing thick eyeglasses and having a lisp and a
stutter which according to him made him
"the biggest retard in the world" (Alexie, 36) . Because of these
attributes he was usually teased and beaten up by a lot of Indians. A way for
him to escape a little from being mistreated that way, was to spend a lot of
time in his room writing and drawing. He would draw pictures of his
family,friends and dreams because unlike
words, pictures can be understood by everyone.
Even though Junior had issues
regarding his health, he always was the brightest student in school.
Unfortunately, his high school and the reservation were too poor to provide
students with updated books and adequate labs. Therefore, this also made Junior
feel frustrated and he concluded that “ Poverty doesn't give you strength or
teach you lessons about perseverance. No, poverty only teaches you how to be
poor.” (Alexie, 54). This frustration
and learning about his sister's dream was what
made him follow
Mr. P's advice and transfer to a high school outside of the reservation in
Reardan. At the beginning, going to this new high school wasn't easy for him.
The fact that he was going to be attending a high school in a town that was
full of white people was pretty intimidating and scary to him especially because
these white people were known to be very racist with Indians. What actually
made Junior gain some respect at Reardan for the first time, was his fist-fight
with Roger after hearing the racist joke
“Did you know that Indians are living proof that niggers fuck buffalo?”
(Alexie, 119).
After that day, even though nobody
ever bothered him again with racist jokes at Reardan he spent a lot of time
lonely and without friends. Also at the reservation his best friend Rowdy
stopped talking to him and most Indians there considered him a traitor for
going to school in Reardan. Fortunately, this didn't affect Junior's ability to
be a bright student in all of his classes which is what made him gain his first
friend at Reardan, Gordy. Gordy and him
had a lot in common and therefore became good friends, this started to make
Junior feel better and more positive. From this point in the story, everything
starts to get better for Junior at Reardan. Not too further on, he also becomes
friends with Penelope and starts dating her. This makes him popular and boost
up his self-stem, he becomes friends with Roger and later becomes part of the
basketball team.
Everything goes great for Junior at
Reardan up until he starts bearing with the death of his Dad's friend Eugene, his
sister Mary and his Grandmother. Each and one of these deaths were caused by
Indians addiction to alcohol. These deaths made Junior suffer more than he had
ever suffered before.
He blames Indians
for all this suffering and for all the bad things that Indians ever go through.
At the end, after going through the best and worst times of his life on that
school year, he and Rowdy go back to being friends and he realizes that Indians
regardless of all their bad attributes always stick together. He also realizes
that people can be multi-tribal and coexist with people from different
cultures.
In conclusion, during the story
Junior went through a lot of positive and negative thinking. All of his
positive thinking had to do with his experience at Reardan and with the fact
that he actually took a step forward in following his dreams. All of his
negative thinking, was caused by the depressed and and hopeless lifestyle of
the Indians at his reservation and their addiction to alcohol. His perseverance
made him keep going to school in Reardan and learn the good lessons that he
learned at the end of the story.
Works Cited
Alexie,
Sherman. The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian.
New York:
Little, Brown, 2007. Print.
No comments:
Post a Comment