In the book, “ The Absolutely True Diary of a Part- Time Indian, A kid named Junior, tells us his life story. He starts off in his reservation. Later in the book He finds courage and transfers schools to Reardan. Reardan is a school that is located outside of the rez, with all whites. Even though there are some disadvantages about going to a school with people that are a different race, He had some good outcomes. He went to get a better education. Not only did He get a better education, but He had an opportunity to do sports. Junior succeeded in that department tremendously.…
One obstacle is that lots of parents, teachers, and kids didn’t really accept Junior and that there is an Indian in their school. “And a lot of them think I shouldn’t be in the school at all.” Another obstacle is that the people on the reservation are mad at him for “leaving them” when he still lives on the reservation. “ About ten o’clock, as I was walking home, three guys jumped me.” After Junior was returning from trick or treating he got jumped because he left his reservation. Junior accepts the obstacles that comes with going Reardan and what they can do to him whether they're good or…
P gave him advice to leave the reservation. Mr. P’s advice to Junior was to leave the Rez so he wont give up on hope. Soon as Juniors parents got home he asked his parents to transfer him to a different school. Then his parents started to name the schools that all the poor kids attended such as Springdale and Hunters, but Junior refused. Junior wanted to go to Rearden because it was one of the best small schools in the state, had a computer room, huge chemistry lab, two basketball gyms, and a drama club. But going Rearden made Junior feel like a Part-Time Indian. The reason he feels like an Part-Time Indian is because he felt like he belonged to two tribes. Junior felt like he had to play two different roles, when he is at his reservation he was Junior and when he went to Rearden he was known as Arnold. So he becomes a multi-tribal…
Nobody thought that it would be possible for an Indian to bring back a victory for Rearden, one of the many all white schools. Junior decided to transfer to Rearden and this decision turned many heads. Most of the Indians in the Reservation were extremely dishonoured by his choice and decided to seclude him from their community. Not only did he lose his community but, he also lost his only best friend Rowdy. Despite all that, Junior knew that it was best for him to leave all of this behind so that he can have a better future. Fighting through the verbal abuse that he faced at Rearden he decided to showcase his skills after joining their varsity basketball team. He travelled back to his hometown of Wellpinit to play his first game of the season…
First, the development of knowledge of a collective identity based exclusively on Reardan fosters Junior’s sense of insight of unity and purpose. As seen when Junior states, “We beat Wellpinit by forty points. Absolutely destroyed them.” (194) Junior identifies himself as a student who attends Reardan, who plays on the basketball team and not as a hopeless child on the reservation with the declaration of “we”. Junior’s insight of purpose was to defeat a part of himself (Wellpinit) in order to hope (Reardan). The loss of individual…
If you have ever moved to new town, or changed schools, then you probably have a pretty good idea how Junior felt throughout the book. After Mr. P talks Junior into getting out of the REZ the only option Junior has, is to travel twenty three miles to Reardan and attend school with the white kids. Being the weirdest and least popular kid, life on the REZ must have been tough. Having parents that drank all the time, and spent money that Juniors family did not have on Alcohol made it hard for him to have clean clothes, and a new outfit to wear now and then. But having a best friend like Rowdy made things a little bit easier. Rowdy was Juniors secret keeper, he also beat anyone up that tried to hurt Junior and was all ways there for him. Well up in till the day Junior changed schools, everyone on the REZ hated Junior they looked at him like he was some sort of trader or bad person. His first day at Reardan was tough, Reardan was the complete opposite of school back on the REZ. It was opposite of his family, and it was opposite of him. The only good part of the day was meeting Penelope. Junior gassed in wonder at her beauty, blond hair and blue eyes he had never seen anything so beautiful.…
He is sick and tired of his poor and boring life at the Rez, as he calls it. He wants to do something with his life, not just be an “Indian boy”. Junior lives at an Indian reservation. The people who lives there are very poor, and Junior tells us in the book that it isn’t much to do there besides drinking. Junior gets bullied a lot on the Rez.…
“Hope rises like a phoenix from the ashes of shattered dreams”-S.A. Sachs. After Juniors discussion with Mr. P Junior was determined to find hope. Junior asks Mr. P, “Where is hope, Who has hope?” Junior already new the exact answer that he would receive, “You will find more hope the further you get from here”. Throughout the whole book Junior still wants to discover more and more hope and doesn't know where he can find it. This question is very difficult for Junior because every day of his life is surrounded by hopelessness. The reservation was like a downward spiral of despair that he needed to escape. This propels the plot forward because this was the hardest decision of his life because Junior doesn't want to betray his tribe, but he…
Native Indians are ashamed of their identity due to the zeitgeist of Modern America, leading them to detach themselves away from society in reservations as a result of their sense of hopelessness against ‘white’ people. Alexie’s use of the epizeuxis ‘poor people’ in “My parents came from poor people who came from poor people … all the way back to the first poor people” emphasizes the absence of opportunity, which could have potentially diverged the family from the neverending cycle of poverty. Nevertheless, these circumstances encourage Junior to leave the reservation for Reardan, a white school, breaking the ideology of a lack of hope in the Indian community. In spite of having identity issues when Junior metaphorically sees himself as “bigfoot or a UFO”, he manages to make friends who accept him for the person he is, changing his attitude and perception, after realizing that the world is “not separated into Indian and White, but rather, assholes and not”. Approaching the end, Junior climbs “branch by branch” towards the top of the biggest tree on the rez, getting a “green, golden and perfect” view of the world, symbolising the extrication from his original identity constraints, whilst acquiring confidence in himself for the first time.…
In the beginning of the book Junior says, “Everybody on the rez calls me retard about twice a day. They call me retard when they are pantsing me or stuffing my head in the toilet or just smacking me upside the head.” (Alexie 4). All the people on the rez have a hard life most are really poor and hate white people. They take that hatred of what other people have done to them out on people or kids like Junior. When Junior leaves to go to a white school Rowdy starts to hate him too. He hates him for leaving. When Junior tries to comfort him Rowdy yells, “Don’t touch me, you retarded fag!” (Alexie 52). Rowdy has a hard life and he takes all his anger and hate out by beating other people up. He has always stuck up for Junior, but when Junior decides to leave he has nobody to be there for him. At the end of that chapter Junior says that Rowdy had become his worst enemy. Rowdy isn’t the only one who hates Junior for leaving, everybody on the reservation who already hated him now calls him a traitor and hates him more. Later in the book when Junior’s basketball team plays against the reservation’s team the whole crowd is yelling, “Ar-nold sucks! Ar-nold sucks! Ar-nold sucks!” (Alexie 143). By the end of the book Rowdy learns to love Junior again. He doesn’t outwardly express it, but he shows in in his own…
As the village of Umuofia falls apart, “The center cannot hold.” When Junior went to Rearden, (the white school) everyone on his reservation turned on him. His reservation is very friendly to each other and were a close community until he moves schools. His reservation feels betrayed and upset. Arnold does not feel like he fits in and he is split between two different worlds; the reservation and Rearden.…
On the other hand, the film American Promise by Joe Brewster and Michele Stephenson, introduces one to the struggling life that two boys have to face while attending a mostly white school and how their class differences changes their perspective and their experience at the Dalton School. Idris’s family is on the wealthier side of the middle class and we see the differences that this make on Idris’s life. For starters Idris had his own room and studying space to do his school work which made it easier for him to navigate through school. Additionally, Idris had his mother there to help him with school work and to keep him on tract throughout his years at Dalton because she didn’t need to work since the dad was the provider of the family and it was enough to sustain them. This meant the Idris had more support and more resources to succeed at Dalton then…
When Junior gets into the fight with Roger he assumes that they will abide by the same “rules of fisticuffs” (61), but they do not, so he is not used to this way of life, and white people may not abide by the same rules of respect. In the Spokane Tribe these rules were unspoken, known facts about the respect each person deserved, but Junior realizes since they do not have those rules at Reardan than they must not respect him, and that is when he goes and talks to his grandmother about the situation. Junior encounters multiple examples of violence on the reservation too, including the Andruss Brothers. At the powwow, the Andruss brothers approach Junior and start to beat him up, “I fell down. One of the brothers picked me up, dusted me off, and then kneed me in the balls” (21). Violence is a major part of Junior’s life, he gets bullied because of his differences all of the time. At Reardan, he is picked on by Roger because he is the only Indian and not like the other kids. Afterwards, Rowdy asks Junior, “ who did this to you” (21)? Rowdy wants to make sure that Junior is okay because he knows about his brain and how fragile it is. This moment is ironic because Rowdy cares about who beat up Junior, but later on Rowdy beats up Junior out of his anger for Junior going to Reardan. Rowdy’s concern and ultimate act of revenge show that he cares about his…
In the novel The absolutely true diary of a part-time Indian, the main character is named Arnold Spirit Jr. He lives on the Spokane reservation (rez) with his family, his best friend Rowdy, and the holder of wisdom Arnold’s grandmother. On the rez everyone calls Arnold; Junior. Junior wants to become something different then his parents. The concept of being different from the rest of his family and friends plays a significant part in Arnold’s life. He does not want to become another nobody on the rez like his parents.…
Junior has become more mature throughout the story. At first, Junior feared white people and disliked them because of the way they treat the Indians differently. For an example, on page 2 says “ I had to have all ten extra teeth pulled out in one day..our white dentist think that Indians only felt half as much pain as white people did.” Junior felt that as an Indian, he had to suffer in order to receive proper health care. Jr. thought the dentist did not think that Indians experienced pain the way white people did. Throughout the story,…