Part Time Indian Thesis

To come from poverty and break out of it is an enormous challenge. In order to conquer this limitation, one must remain hopeful. Sherman Alexie portrays Junior's struggle to remain hopeful. In The Absolutely True Diary Of A Part Time Indian,the cynical attitude that is passed down, lack of hope and inertia on the reservation turns children, like Junior, into despairing people convinced that they are going nowhere in life and there is nothing they can do about it. But Junior overcomes this by rejecting negative influences and staying hopeful through life’s problems. In The Absolutely True Diary Of A Part Time Indian, Junior struggles with his environment on the reservation. Junior was born into a difficult life. His parents are alcoholics and, while they are not bad people, they are unhopeful …show more content…
This is shown by the quote “[Poverty is] an ugly circle and [there is] nothing you can do about it.” Junior feels hopeless because of all the negative influences in the reservation. It is truly terrible that in this kind of environment, even teenagers are not enthusiastic about life and their future. Through all of his problems he somehow still manages to keep his hope through his cartoons and, although this is hanging from a thread, it is better than most of the Indians on the reservation. Then he loses his hope when he finds out that he has to learn geometry from a (at least) 30 year old textbook shown by this quote “[...]that old,old,old decrepit geometry book hit [Junior’s] heart with the force of a nuclear bomb. [His] hopes and dreams floated up in a mushroom cloud.” He finally realizes that he wants to do more with his life beyond staying in a reservation and having a dead end life. He realizes he has to go to Rearden, not because they are better people there, but because he realizes that to bring back hope, one must be around others who have