A World of Beliefs
In the world many people have, don’t have, or think they have hope. Hope is many different things. In The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie, many people have hope and many people think they don’t have hope. The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian is about a boy named Junior and how he finds his way in the world and how he builds his own path to find hope. He ends up going to a school outside the Reservation where he tries to find a balance between his two identities. Many people in this book, like Junior, Mary and Grandma have many different beliefs about hope and they are all very interesting when you look at them below the surface. The different perceptions people have of
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a white person. One thing that he said was that whites have “hope” and a “bright future” while Indians only have a “vanishing past” and a “bone-crushing reality.” Junior has these thoughts because everyone on the rez is always drunk and people die all the time like how Junior has been to 42 funerals and 90% of them are from alcohol (pages 199 and 200.) Junior ends up finding some hope at Reardon like when everyone was cheering on Junior in the basketball game and he loved the school. Even though Junior had a stereotype in his head that whites were the only ones with hope he was able to defy his own” laws.”
Mary believes that you need a little push from someone close to follow your dream then hope will come. Mary is the sister of Junior. When Junior left to go to Reardon outside the rez, Mary felt a calling to follow her dream. Mary lived in her basement for years until Junior “moved.” Then she made the crazy decision to marry and move to Montana (page 89.) Mary followed that calling and found hope in living out her dream of living a romance novel. Junior figures this out on page 90 when he said,
How weird is that? It’s almost romantic.
And then I realized that my sister was trying to LIVE a ro- mance novel.
Mary had always wanted to write romance novels and she wanted to live on too. Mary kept in touch with her family, but died on page 201. Mary found hope when her brother left that she could still live out her dream
She didn’t have a stable father figure, just men in and out of her and her mother's lives. Mary continued to play an adult role, considering she made sure the bills were paid on time and making sure her mom always had enough money. “I always counted the out the rent money Momma kept in the coffee can above the stove. We were always short and Momma would yell at me for counting it wrong. I counted right; we were just short” (Jackson 35).
As Mary’s story unravels, she continues to suffer long hours of work, starvation, and separation from her family. She reads her holy bible and is constantly reminding herself that God is with her and will see her through these trials. Her spirits are lifted her master agrees to sell Mary to her husband, and her mistress begins the journey with her, but before long the mistress decides not to go any further and they turn back. Not long after, she starts to loose hope that she will ever be reunited with her family. She becomes discouraged, and her spirit
"Double-consciousness this sense of always looking at one 's self through the eyes of others, of measuring one 's soul by the tape of a world that looks on in amused contempt and pity" (Dubois, 8). W.E.B. Du Bois had a perfect definition of double-consciousness. The action of viewing one 's self through the eyes of others and measuring one 's soul. Looking at all of the thoughts good or bad coming from others. This is present in the main character of the book The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, by Sherman Alexie. The Absolutely True Diary is about a boy named Junior that is fourteen years old and living on the Spokane Reservation. Junior was born with too
Like Joy, Mary went to university to help her family’s situation and had Tony and Wes at a young age. Her mother, Alma died when she was 16, shortly after Mary had Tony, due to her kidney failure transplant. Mary was married to Bernard, an alcoholic, and ended up leaving him. About eight months after they had Wes, Bernard was banging on their front door late at night. On page 24 it says, “Bernard continued to bang and scream. He stood the other side of the door in faded jeans and plain white T-shirt, his beard scruffy and his eyes bloodshot.” He was trying to see his son, but Mary just peered at him, disgusted. Finally, he left their front door, and it was the last time he tried to see his son. Mary was a hardworking, and independent mother who took care of two children by
As Diary of a Part Time Indian progresses and Junior enrolls in Reardan, he continues to belief that he does not deserve hope, unlike the kids at Reardan, but not necessarily because of his race anymore. Resulting from his choice to leave the reservation, Junior struggles to fit in at Reardan, but not leave his identity behind, since for him living on the reservation is entwined with being poor.
“The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian”, written by Sherman Alexie, is a novel describing a 14 year old’s journey throughout high school. In the story, Junior, the main character, is faced with multiple obstacles in his life: Hydrocephalus, poverty, and the target of bullying. Despite the world being against him, Junior’s multiple traits helps him greatly when it comes to the adversity that accompanies his migration from the Wellpinit Reservation to Rearden.
Poverty hits children hardest in the world. When I was younger, the Armenians had faced the hard facts of poverty after they break up with the Soviet Union, war with Azerbaijan, and a devastating earthquake. My family moved into our motherland Armenia while our nation was going through these huge dramatic changes. Furthermore the poor economy and inflation destroyed numerous hopes and futures. In the novel, The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, by Sherman Alexie, Arnold Spirit, describes his hardships involving poverty living on Spokane reservation. The people on the reservation are stuck in a prison of poverty. They are imprisoned there due to lack of resources and general contempt from the outside world, so they are left with little chance for success. Like Arnold, I also went through hardships regarding poverty and education.
Mary was a horrible role model for her two children.She had two sons whose names were Tony and Wes Moore.She partied instead of parenting her children, along with “hiding ” Marijuana in her family's home.On page twenty Mary blatantly lied to her own child’s face.She looked At Wes and said, “Mommy got some bad news about school, and I want to go see some friends
She hated her stepfather so much that she was barely home and always got in arguments with her mother, yelling at her for marrying such a bad man. Mary and her mother did not get along after her mom remarried so Mary drank and began to live like a hobo. There was nothing for the men to do back than besides drink so she couldn't really blame her mother for picking a man like that because that is how they all were. They just drank and drove around wasted. Mary was one of six kids, sister Kathie, brother Robert, sister Barbara (who she got along the best with), sister Sandra and then an adopted little brother. The adopted brother was very spoiled. Mary's mother had to find a job to help support the kids and when she was gone at work nobody was left to take care of them so their grandparents took care of them. Her grandma was born Louise Flood and her grandpa was Brave Bird. Her grandpa was killed when the horses which were pulling his wagon were startled by a lighting storm. The horses freaked out and caused the wagon to tip. Brave Bird got thrown out of the wagon and got tangled in the reins. The horses dragged him through the bush, over rocks, and over barbed-wire fence. When people found him he was dead. Her grandma ended up remarrying a man named Noble Moore. Noble Moore had a son named Bill who ended up marrying Mary's mom. Mary's mom had grown up and no longer was married to the
The upshot of all this is that, Junior’s decision about leaving the Rez and moving to Reardan for a better education was tough. He faced lot of problems; he felt lonely because of losing his best friend, and afraid of death of his tribe and family. Although he suffered from the entire bad things that happened to him, it was the best decision that he had made for his life. “I realized that I might be a lonely Indian boy, but I
A new level of expectations and accomplishments came about Junior when he moved to Reardan. He finally had somewhere to have a fresh start where people didn’t know what he was capable of, nor did anyone have a presumption set for Junior. With this new chapter in his life and new beginnings Junior had become someone he never had a chance to be at the Reservation. Junior was smart, intellectual, confident, observant and had a completely different mentality. Thanks to some very important people at Reardan like Gordy and Junior’s basketball coach, they were able to mentor and drive Junior to be the person he was ultimately trying to become. Gordy was an intelligent young man in Junior 's life who was able to connect books to some life morals. Because of Gordy, Junior finally made his own realization that “if every moment of a book should be taken seriously, then every moment of life should be taken seriously as well” (95). At this moment in the book, Junior started to realize there was meaning to his life; why not enjoy it doing the things you love and are passionate about. One passion in
Adolescents experience a multitude of physical, cognitive, emotional, and social, and mental changes during a short span of years in their developmental journey to adulthood, and this transition period is full of many developmental changes and milestones. Some typical changes and milestones in an adolescent’s life include puberty, learning to drive, dating, developing new social relationships and social roles, cognitive changes, becoming sexually active, obtaining employment, and graduating high school. In addition to all of these changes in this tumultuous time of life, adolescents are identifying, developing, and coming to terms with their own sense of self, and learning about their identity becomes a priority. Teens and young adults must also address certain challenges that may arise in their lives such as bullying, drug and alcohol use, violence, sexual abuse, eating disorders, depression or other mood/mental health issues, and issues concerning sexuality, and gender identity. Sherman Alexie’s The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian is an engaging story that deals with many of the challenges that all adolescents face, and this novel also addresses challenges that are unique to those teens who may be grappling with issues that face minority cultures and communities as well.
In conclusion, Mary never moved beyond the conflict, made progress, or handled the conflict well. She remained the languishing person she was from beginning to the end. Bill did not even recognize her and he never felt the same way. Mary ended up marrying a man she never loved and she named her son Bill. She is still that cheerless person now. Do not be afraid to tell someone something because you may never get the chance to tell them
Almost all teens experience some sort of an identity crisis. They struggle with finding a clearer sense of themselves. Arnold Spirit Jr., a 14-year-old reservation Indian, faces an identity crisis when he leaves his reservation to go to school in Reardan, a town inhibited by white people. To begin, Arnold moves between different settings, and when he does, there is a change in his identity. Moreover, there is a change in his character as he moves between cities. Finally, Arnold experiences an identity crisis as well as conflicts with his community. In The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie, the author uses literary elements to emphasize that one’s racial and ethnic identity changes depending on the social surrounding.
When Junior transfers to Reardan a white school off the reservation you can see the conflicting aspects of identity and belonging. This part in the book is where Junior starts to describe himself as a part time Indian. “I was half Indian in one place and half white in the other place” (Alexie, p.118). Going back and forth between Reardan and Wellpinit,