lit analysis diary of a part time indian sherman alexie

Richele Tucker
Stacie Sather
English 305
15 November 2013
The novel, The Diary of a Part Time Indian by Sherman Alexi is about a young American Indian boy who decides to leave the reservation to better his life. He starts out finding himself through this change in his life and continues to grow and change into the young man he wants to become. At the beginning of the novel he seems frustrated because he is told he must do as the others on the reservation and he seems to feel mistreated when he does exactly like the youth on the reservation. By the end of the story he seems to change his outlook and goes through a realization of reality and he seems to feel more hopeful that he isn’t the only one who isn’t perfect in this crazy and vast world. When he is in school upon the res he feels like there no way to get very far. He states that all the hope is with the white people. So he decided to change school after getting in trouble in the reservation math class for throwing a 30 year old math text book at the teacher. The teacher later talks to junior and gives him hope to see he can do better and the teacher believes he will but he needs to take advantage of all the resources her can. In that he finds himself looking into going to Reardon junior high school. Reardon is an all-white junior high which junior views as perfect. Though upon entering this school he comes to realize that’s not all true. He notices that the problems found on the reservation are also found off the reservation within this all white school which he though was perfect. That idea that something is perfect is almost a very naive idea of things in life and I feel that he sees at that point in life that the perspective on life changes. A coming of age novel is so diverse in its issues and when Jr. is young he seems to believe that there is a world in society that’s perfect and everyone’s happy and no one bully’s but daily he’s proved wrong and when he finally breaks free of his tradition and culture on going to school in the reservation. When he changes school that’s the point in which I think he kind of begins to see the differences in his decisions and that he’s getting older and taking his life into his own hands.
The decisions he makes effects and shapes who he is as a character and a young man. We all grow up differently even under the same roof so when he understands that he is in control of his future the reality of his decisions which made him scared and frustrated are now issues of different sorts. Instead he is now independent and more mature. The decisions of what he wants to be when he grows up and how he is able to believe the dreams which seemed so far may not be as far as he thinks because with this good education from Reardon he got the opportunity to be more than what the Indians on the reservation would be able to achieve because of the lack of education resources in that village.