Theme Of The Absolutely True Diary Of A Part Time Indian

«The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-time Indian” by Sherman Alexie touches upon many different themes like for instance racism and poverty, but most crucial to the story is the search for personal and cultural identity that Junior goes through. Figuring out one’s own identity is hard enough as it is, and even more so for a boy who suddenly finds himself in a situation where he has to walk among two “tribes” simultaneously. Junior knows he will be facing several challenges when he decides to switch schools, and one of the first ones he experiences is the sudden lack of a proper identity. Is he Junior from the reservation or Arnold from Reardan, and who is in charge of deciding what the right answer is?

In the beginning of the book, we are …show more content…
An episode that really signifies this occurs when he tries to introduce himself to the rest of the students in his class by using the name Junior, which the others find very strange. Later, as the teacher is taking attendance, Junior’s full name is called for everyone to hear. This results in that the others accuse him of lying, because apparently his real name is not Junior, it is Arnold. Another result of this particular episode is that he suddenly has two identities. Back home at the reservation, he is Junior, but when at school everyone refers to him as Arnold. As time passes, more differences than just the name arises between the two. Junior is, as mentioned, an outcast who only has one friend. On the other hand, Arnold evolves to become the exact opposite: popular and surrounded by people he can call friends. He even has a girlfriend who in his opinion is way out of his …show more content…
The book is largely about the search for personal and cultural identity, and manages to show both the challenges and possibilities that search may lead to. Figuring out who you are is both about how you perceive yourself and how others perceive you, and as Junior travels out of the reservation he learns how this can change according to the people he surrounds himself with, but that he is the one in charge at the end of the day. The book starts out with Junior belonging to a tribe, having let that tribe forge most of his identity, and ends when he comes to the realisation that he does not have to let any tribe decide who he is, but that it does not mean that he has to leave it all behind. As his best friend Rowdy says it, he is essentially a nomad travelling between