Of course friends can help overcome some things in life, that’s exactly what happens to Arnold. For one, on page 126, Alexie wrote “He opened his wallet and handed me forty bucks” That’s showing that Arnold’s friends were able to help him out with some cash when he needed it. Also on page 129, Alexie had written “Roger, being …show more content…
It’s not really said that he has it but there are puzzle pieces in the book directing towards it, just as in this quote “After Oscar died, I was so depressed that I thought about crawling into a hole and disappearing forever.” (15) They probably couldn’t help Arnold with his poverty, due to it being such a massive problem in his life. Even though none of them could change Arnold’s poverty, they could make him feel less bad about it sometimes, just as in this quote “I figured she was going to march right on out of my life then. But she didn’t” (127) This quote and this other quote “She was being my friend. Being a really good friend in fact.” (127) These two quotes are able to explain how Penelope is being a good friend towards Arnold, not leaving him after he told her he was poor. Similarly the same goes for Roger, “It will be good to have you out there...I couldn’t believe he was so nice. He was, well. He was POLITE.” This quote is showing, even that Roger had been rude to Arnold before with a racist insult, he could be nice to Arnold and be his friend. Penelope and Roger have been there to help Arnold rather than Rowdy, which used to be his best friend before they got into a argument and broke their friendship …show more content…
For Arnold it may have been for the better, back when he was friends with Rowdy, Arnold seemed to have been going down a bad path back when he was at his old before he transfered over to Rearden. Back at his old school he got into some trouble by throwing a book at a teacher’s head and he got suspended. But maybe it was for the better, when Arnold first told Rowdy he was leaving, Rowdy replied with “You always thought you were better than me, He yelled… No, no I don’t think I’m better than anybody. I think I’m worse than everybody else” (52) This may have hinted that Rowdy was making Arnold feel worse or insecure about himself, thinking that he was worse than anybody around. Rowdy also punched Arnold on the same page in the passage “Bang! Rowdy punched me. Bang! I hit the ground. Bang! My nose bled like a firework.” This shows that Rowdy is very aggressive if something that he doesn’t like want comes up. Those quotes may help show that sometimes removing something or someone negative may be better than not removing