Emily Mejia
Mr. Rodriguez
Academic Literacy
21 April 2023
Individual vs. Community
Something that a lot of people don’t realize is that their communities have a big impact on the decisions they make, especially when it comes to their future. When making important life decisions, the question of how their community would react always comes to mind. The fictional novel The Absolutely True Diary of a Part Time Indian by Sherman Alexie is a perfect example of an individual having to choose between their own success or their community. This novel takes place on a Native American reservation, and in this novel we see the protagonist, Junior, face the problem of having to choose between his individuality and his community. Additionally, he is
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“I wept because I was the only one who was brave and crazy enough to leave the rez. I was the only one with enough arrogance,” (Alexie 217). Junior knows that he is the only Spokane Indian who was strong enough to not lose hope in his dreams, which causes him to carry a burden of guilt for being the only person to make it out of the stereotypes. Junior is under the impression that his decision of leaving the reservation is arrogant, he knows that he is bettering his life for himself but he can’t help but feel as if his tribe’s failures are his fault. “ I knew that none of them was going to college. Not one of them…I suddenly wanted to apologize to Rowdy, to all of the other Spokanes. I was suddenly ashamed of my anger, my rage, and my pain…I ran into the bathroom, into a toilet stall, and threw up. And then I wept like a baby,” (Alexie 195-96). Junior is also under the impression that he is somehow betraying his tribe by not following the same cycle as everyone else. He feels like he is no longer accepted by them and his success is now being reflected by their …show more content…
“No, if I don’t go now, I never will. I have to do it now,” (Alexie 46). Junior knows that if he doesn’t leave his reservation he is going to get stuck. He is going to keep repeating an endless cycle of lost hope and dreams. He is going to be lost in a community where being an alcoholic is normal, and stay in a place where he isn’t encouraged to, nor does he have the resources, to be his best self. “I realized that, sure, I was a Spokane Indian. I belonged to that tribe. But I also belonged to the tribe of American immigrants. Junior realizes that his tribe isn’t the only place where he could feel like he belonged to something bigger than himself. He could be accepted in other communities that would have a better impact on his individual
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.
In the novel The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, Native American author Sherman Alexie covers the struggles of Indians living in poverty on the Spokane Indian Reservation. This story tells about Junior’s upbringing on the reservation and informs people about his family's struggles with poverty and the hardships they had to face because of it. Alexie uses conflict, irony, and symbolism. To help people understand the idea of poverty on the rez, and how it affected him, his freinds, and family. Alexie uses symbolism to represent poverty on the Spokane reservation.
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.”
A Spokane Indian reservation in Wellpinit, Washington is the setting of Alexie’s book. The Indian reservation gives us a firsthand look of a poverty stricken community. The main character in the book Arnold and his family and mostly all other families living on this reservation are poor. Their community is isolated from society; the main character feels that “the reservation is meant to be a prison” in the sense that they are isolated from the real world (Alexie 216).
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).
Living in a Spokane reservation, Junior shows how poverty makes people turn to alcoholism as a way to cope. He represents this by showing the experiences of Eugene, and Mary, as well as his grandmother. “Eugene was a good guy, and like an uncle to me, but he was drunk all the time. Not stinky drunk, just drunk enough to be drunk. He was a funny and kind drunk, always wanting to laugh and hug you and sing songs and dance.”
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
Junior was constantly bullied while going to school on the reservation. One time, the Andrus brothers were picking on him and Junior said,”All three of them shoved me to and fro. They were playing catch with me” (Alexie 21). This was a common occurrence on the reservation for Junior, and it got to the point where he could not take it anymore. As a result, he convinced Rowdy to go with him to shave off the Andrus brothers hair which they have been growing their whole life.
The presence of reservation was a total separation of culture and race. By introducing Thomas and Junior’s family background, Sherman Alexie showned the sad lives and fragmented identity that the Natives endured. However, the protagonist
In his book the Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, Sherman Alexie portrays a teenage boy, Arnold Spirit (junior) living in white man’s world, and he must struggle to overcome racism and stereotypes if he must achieve his dreams. In the book, Junior faces a myriad of misfortunes at his former school in ‘the rez’ (reservation), which occurs as he struggles to escape from racial and stereotypical expectations about Indians. For Junior he must weigh between accepting what is expected of him as an Indian or fight against those forces and proof his peers and teachers wrong. Therefore, from the time Junior is in school at reservation up to the time he decides to attend a neighboring school in Rearden, we see a teenager who is facing tough consequences for attempting to go against the racial stereotypes.
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
Facing struggles of life defines one’s character in life. The ability to confront one’s problems speaks volumes about their strength in character, hopefulness, and flexibility as a person. Through struggles, sacrifice, and tragedy, Junior in The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, by Sherman Alexie, Junior adapts to survive difficult situations and faces his problems head-on. As he makes radical changes to his life, adapts to unfamiliar culture, and finds himself amongst misery and heartbreak, Junior demonstrates this ability to overcome wicked adversity and struggles.
pg 52. In this scene from the book you see Junior who cares so much about his past and his best friend. His identity is rooted in his past. At the same time, Junior is trying to tell Rowdy that he, Junior, needs more opportunity than what he can accomplish on the rez.
And because you're Indian you start believing you're destined to be poor. It's an ugly circle and there's nothing you can do about it,” (Alexie 19). In addition, Junior remarks that it’s not just him that is poor, but his tribe in the reservation too. It shows how much poverty is affecting him and the people on the reservation. According to Sherman Alexie, he mentions in the novel, “My school and my tribe are so poor and sad that we have to study from the same dang books our parents studied from.
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