“Poverty doesn’t give you strength or teach you lessons about perseverance. No, poverty only teaches you how to be poor (13).” Most people have an opinion on poverty, however unless you experience it first hand, you would not understand how hard life may be. Sherman Alexie’s National Book Award novel, The Absolutely True Diary of a Part Time Indian highlights the devastating effects that poverty has on the protagonist, Junior.
In Alexie’s novel, the main character, Junior, lives on the Spokane Indian Reserve along with many other families surrounded by poverty. Each family, affected in different ways, lives a life full of broken hopes and dreams. However Junior, a young kid born with too much cerebrospinal fluid, takes being poor and having …show more content…
Junior’s excitement about his first geometry class truly conveys his academic prowess, “I have to admit that isosceles triangles make me feel hormonal (25)”. Junior is so ready to conquer this class but there is one big setback. Blindsided by the fact that Junior opens the cover to find a surprise, he cannot help but be enraged. “This Book Belongs To Agnes Adams.... Agnes Adams is my mothers maiden name (31)”. Junior couldn't have been the only kid that saw his parents name inside the geometry textbook that was worn out and probably smells like coffee. However, exasperated at the fact that his school’s so poor that they are forced to share the exact same textbooks that their parents used over thirty years ago, Junior throws that old decrepit geometry book and it smashed Mr. P right in the face, accidentally of course. Mr. P also visits Junior and tells him that he cannot come back to the school, that he needs to find somewhere better. Mr P. elucidates that you can be happy in other places by stating “ Son, you're going to find more and more hope the further and further you walk away from this sad, sad, sad, reservation. Low and behold, Rearden, an all white school was his choice. It was just time for a difference, time to evade …show more content…
Junior’s teacher explains that in order for him to break this cycle and defeat his anger, he needs to leave the reservation. Unfortunately, in order for Junior to realize that a better life may be out there, he has to leave the rez and step into a world he’s been taught to fear and loathe and leave the only place he knows and trusts just to succeed. Assimilating in the white culture , he feels more obligated to succeed and fit in. Junior exclaims: “I want to go to Reardan.... If I don't go now, I never will. I have to do it now (46).” Junior’s urgency to act sooner than later shows how desperate he wants a better life. Junior believes that he will succeed financially and become stable in the rich, white farm town that sits in the wheat fields exactly twenty-two miles away from the rez. The last piece of the puzzle being how junior should get to school. His family doesn't have enough money to pay for gas to drive him all the way there and back. Sometimes, Junior has to walk either eleven miles or all twenty-two to show that there is nothing he would rather do than break this monotonous
In Alexie’s novel, the main character, Junior, lives on the Spokane Indian Reserve along with many other families surrounded by poverty. Each family, affected in different ways, lives a life full of broken hopes and dreams. However Junior, a young kid born with too much cerebrospinal fluid, takes being poor and having …show more content…
Junior’s excitement about his first geometry class truly conveys his academic prowess, “I have to admit that isosceles triangles make me feel hormonal (25)”. Junior is so ready to conquer this class but there is one big setback. Blindsided by the fact that Junior opens the cover to find a surprise, he cannot help but be enraged. “This Book Belongs To Agnes Adams.... Agnes Adams is my mothers maiden name (31)”. Junior couldn't have been the only kid that saw his parents name inside the geometry textbook that was worn out and probably smells like coffee. However, exasperated at the fact that his school’s so poor that they are forced to share the exact same textbooks that their parents used over thirty years ago, Junior throws that old decrepit geometry book and it smashed Mr. P right in the face, accidentally of course. Mr. P also visits Junior and tells him that he cannot come back to the school, that he needs to find somewhere better. Mr P. elucidates that you can be happy in other places by stating “ Son, you're going to find more and more hope the further and further you walk away from this sad, sad, sad, reservation. Low and behold, Rearden, an all white school was his choice. It was just time for a difference, time to evade …show more content…
Junior’s teacher explains that in order for him to break this cycle and defeat his anger, he needs to leave the reservation. Unfortunately, in order for Junior to realize that a better life may be out there, he has to leave the rez and step into a world he’s been taught to fear and loathe and leave the only place he knows and trusts just to succeed. Assimilating in the white culture , he feels more obligated to succeed and fit in. Junior exclaims: “I want to go to Reardan.... If I don't go now, I never will. I have to do it now (46).” Junior’s urgency to act sooner than later shows how desperate he wants a better life. Junior believes that he will succeed financially and become stable in the rich, white farm town that sits in the wheat fields exactly twenty-two miles away from the rez. The last piece of the puzzle being how junior should get to school. His family doesn't have enough money to pay for gas to drive him all the way there and back. Sometimes, Junior has to walk either eleven miles or all twenty-two to show that there is nothing he would rather do than break this monotonous