The Absolutely True Diary Of A Part Time Indian Analysis

Decent Essays
Believe in yourself and others will believe in you
The motivation of others can drive of forward to achieve our goals. It can also boost our self confidence and give us something to believe in. But that doesn’t always happen. People bring themselves down because they think they’re not good enough. They think that nobody will believe in them, that nobody with stand by them in the line of fire. But that’s not necessarily true. People always motivate their friends, teammates, even people they might not know. And that’s what keeps them going, and going, and going, until they’re reaching the stars. Someone believing in you and calling your name and hollering for you, is the best feeling in the world. It’s something that everyone needs. It might not always be what we want to hear, but we need it to shape us into the confident people we are. And who we are is what we want to be.
…show more content…
In this novel, Junior is continuously tortured by anger, hate, sorrow, and pain. It follows him everywhere he goes. However with new opportunities at his new white school, Reardan, he gets way more motivation than he did at his home school on the the reservation, WellPinit. Wellpinit’s crowd ‘attacked” Junior with hurtful comments while he was walking into the gym. While in Reardan’s gym the crowd whooped and hollered for junior. That’s more than he’s ever gotten from anyone. His coach told him that he was going to be a starter, and he had to guard Rowdy. But Junior thought that he could never stop Rowdy. And his coach told him over and over again ti’ll Junior finally told him that he was going to do it. So that gave him the courage to go out and dominate the Redskins. This shows that you need people to believe in you so that you can believe in

Related Documents

  • Improved Essays

    Sometimes we need to take uncomfortable risks if we wish to change our lives. Even though these decisions at the moment might frighten us we need to make them in order to see hope farther down the road. In Sherman Alexie book Diary of a Part Time Indian Arnold Spirit is a 12-year old boy is a reservation indian who leaves his tribe to pursue a better education at Reardan, which is a all white school. Arnold makes tough decisions that contradict the expectations of his tribe ,because he hopes for a better future than most of the indians of his tribe on the reservation.…

    • 706 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    One of Junior’s many traits is perseverance. Junior is depicted as perseverant when he heads to Reardan, a “white” school unlike his school, Wellpinit. He goes to Reardan even though he knows his tribe and his best friend,…

    • 822 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    "None of those guys punched me or got violent. After all, I was a reservation Indian, and no matter how geeky and weak I appeared to be, I was still a potential killer."(63) Rowdy, Junior's closest friend on the rez did not support Junior on his decision to leave the rez. Rowdy protected Junior, because "[he gets] beat up. [on the Rez], at least once a month.…

    • 572 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Decent Essays

    “You deserve better,” “You need to leave the Reservation, take your hope and go somewhere where people have hope.” -Sherman Alexie In the book the absolute true diary of a part time Indian, Mr. P said those exact words to Junior when he knew that Junior deserved better than to stay on the rez, where he would have no hope to do anything amazing with his life. Junior had been sitting in class a few days before when he found that his geometry textbook had been from when his mother was in school.…

    • 217 Words
    • 1 Pages
    Decent Essays
  • Improved Essays

    He grew up on the reservation, he knew everyone since the majority of them was a part of his family. He feels that he needs a change of scenery and to be in a different environment, so he decides to go to a white populated school. From the school he was looked as an outsider and someone who was different, then from his tribe he was looked as a traitor. In many aspects, people and especially students can understand and know what exactly what Junior went through. Knowing how it feels to be judged for being different from everyone else, they would be able to have an understanding that they are not the only ones who are facing these types of problems.…

    • 1019 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Decent Essays

    Part Time Indian Thesis

    • 122 Words
    • 1 Pages

    After school ended, Junior was lonely and bored until someone knocked on the door "Rowdy walked inside."(227) "What are you doing here?"(227) "I'm bored"(227) " So you want to maybe shoot some hoops?"(228). That was Rowdy's way of forgiving Junior and accepting him back into the Rez.…

    • 122 Words
    • 1 Pages
    Decent Essays
  • Great Essays

    Floating inside the depths of his new school, Junior tries balancing both cultures. He attends the Powwow, all the while knowing he’d be punished because of it; he joins the Reardan boys’ basketball team, dreaming up a bigger and better life for himself. He tried keeping everyone satisfied, but after a while, he realized that wasn’t possible. Stuck in desolation, Junior explains, “Traveling between Reardan and Wellpinit, between the little white town and the reservation, I always felt like a stranger. I was half Indian in one place and half white in the other.…

    • 1276 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Improved Essays

    This is when Junior really starts to realize that in being so caught up in fighting racism off, he did not notice that he himself has a racist mindset. He has seen the white race as superior to the indian race for his entire life. Earlier in the novel he states, “I knew it; all of those kids knew it. Indians don’t deserve shit” (56). He has been living his life being racist towards his own race.…

    • 768 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Friendship comes in many different ways, there are nice, mean, some whom are close and some whom are not close friends. In the book, The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, by Sherman Alexie, Arnold who is the main character has one really good friend who is Rowdy. They were friends since they were born. Arnold and Rowdy both live on a reservation where people are going through hard times. Arnold wanted to go to a school that wasn’t on a reservation and Rowdy felt as if Arnold was leaving his home and didn’t want to be friends with Rowdy.…

    • 653 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The quote above helps capture one of the key messages within, Sherman Alexie’s, The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian; Forbes tells how acknowledging stereotypes as truth distorts our image of races, as opposed to intimately getting to know someone. In the story, main character Arnold Spirit Junior discerns individuals he meets through stereotypes, and until he becomes more comfortable with them. This theme of racist and classist stereotypes overshadow the complexity of one’s character frequently occurs in The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian. Alexie shows how the use of stereotypes cover the personality of characters by making them seem one-dimensional. Sherman Alexie incorporates this theme into many of the characters within, The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, among them, Junior’s father.…

    • 809 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    Sherman Alexie’s, “The Absolutely True Diary of a Part Time Indian” is the account of Arnold Spirit, also known as Junior. Junior is the novel’s narrator and while he is witty and seemingly proud of his heritage in the beginning of the story, it appears the point of the novel is to show us Junior’s transformation. He begins life on the reservation, attending school in Wellpinit, Washington. Eventually, he transfers to an all-white high school twenty-two miles from the reservation in Reardan, where he begins to change. A shallow reader may think the novel is only about Junior’s journey, but actually, Alexie has managed to show us the difference between Arnold Spirit and Junior as two separate people.…

    • 978 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Part Time Indian Identity

    • 562 Words
    • 3 Pages

    The all-white school, Rearden, Junior is attending is twenty-two miles away from the reservation and the only way to get there was to drive. Junior was ready to head to school when his dad says, “ Don’t have enough gas” (Alexie 71), Junior understands that he needs to go to school and finds a ride from a family friend. While poverty is a common aspect of Indian lives Junior found a way to overcome this milestone showing his determination to better…

    • 562 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Great Essays

    Blossoming Lives Sprouted From Friends, Family, and Fights In the novel The Absolutely True Diary of a Part Time Indian by Sherman Alexie one realises humans all need other people to help one change and grow; the characters Arnold and Roger demonstrate this by helping each other alter negative parts of themselves. Initially, Arnold is a hopeless, trapped in a perpetual stream of despair, demoralisation, and defeatedness. In a final attempt to escape the suffocating hold his society has on in him, he transfers to Reardan, a rich, white, racist school. Here, with the help of his new friends, teachers, coaches, and support from his family he changes into an inspired boy who realises that he can achieve greatness and reach his goals despite his status as a social pariah.…

    • 1125 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Near the beginning of the book, Junior decides to transfer to Reardan, the high school in a white town 22 miles away from Wellpinit. While his parents are supportive of this, his best friend, Rowdy, doesn't agree. When he realizes Junior is serious about transferring he starts throwing punches and accusing him of being a “white lover”. Rowdy is not alone in his betrayal either. When the news spreads, the rest of the…

    • 751 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    And I was going to be his secret weapon. I was going to be his weapon of mass destruction” (Alexie 142). Basketball also helped him because when they went to play reservation, junior was scared to cover Rowdy but coach said “You can do it” (Alexie 189). Junior thought it was amazing to hear that from an adult. Finally…

    • 472 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Improved Essays