In Sherman Alexie's The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, The main character Arnold “Junior” Spirit goes through a lot of highs and lows psychologically. In the first few chapters of the book, Junior describes how miserable his life was compared to most Indians in the reservation and how in general Indians live a very poor and miserable life compared to people who live outside of the reservation. Later on, when he starts going to a new school outside of the reservation, he goes through a way new experience that makes him see life in a more positive way but also experiences one of the worst times of his life because of how bad life is at the reservation.
While living and going to school in the reservation, the main thing that makes Junior's life very sad and miserable is his health condition. He was born with “water in the brain”(Alexie, 1) which is a condition that requires surgery. After Junior survived his surgery he grew up with a very big head, wearing thick eyeglasses and having a lisp and a stutter which according to him made him "the biggest retard in the world" (Alexie, 36) . Because of these attributes he was usually teased and beaten up by a lot of Indians. A way for him to escape a little from being mistreated that way, was to spend a lot of time in his room writing and drawing. He would draw pictures of his family,friends and dreams because unlike words, pictures can be understood by everyone.
Even though Junior had issues regarding his health, he always was the brightest student in school. Unfortunately, his high school and the reservation were too poor to provide students with updated books and adequate labs. Therefore, this also made Junior feel frustrated and he concluded that “ Poverty doesn't give you strength or teach you lessons about perseverance. No, poverty only teaches you how to be poor.” (Alexie, 54). This frustration and learning about his sister's dream was what
made him follow Mr. P's advice and transfer to a high school outside of the reservation in Reardan. At the beginning, going to this new high school wasn't easy for him. The fact that he was going to be attending a high school in a town that was full of white people was pretty intimidating and scary to him especially because these white people were known to be very racist with Indians. What actually made Junior gain some respect at Reardan for the first time, was his fist-fight with Roger after hearing the racist joke “Did you know that Indians are living proof that niggers fuck buffalo?” (Alexie, 119).
After that day, even though nobody ever bothered him again with racist jokes at Reardan he spent a lot of time lonely and without friends. Also at the reservation his best friend Rowdy stopped talking to him and most Indians there considered him a traitor for going to school in Reardan. Fortunately, this didn't affect Junior's ability to be a bright student in all of his classes which is what made him gain his first friend at Reardan, Gordy. Gordy and him had a lot in common and therefore became good friends, this started to make Junior feel better and more positive. From this point in the story, everything starts to get better for Junior at Reardan. Not too further on, he also becomes friends with Penelope and starts dating her. This makes him popular and boost up his self-stem, he becomes friends with Roger and later becomes part of the basketball team.
Everything goes great for Junior at Reardan up until he starts bearing with the death of his Dad's friend Eugene, his sister Mary and his Grandmother. Each and one of these deaths were caused by Indians addiction to alcohol. These deaths made Junior suffer more than he had ever suffered before.
He blames Indians for all this suffering and for all the bad things that Indians ever go through. At the end, after going through the best and worst times of his life on that school year, he and Rowdy go back to being friends and he realizes that Indians regardless of all their bad attributes always stick together. He also realizes that people can be multi-tribal and coexist with people from different cultures.
In conclusion, during the story Junior went through a lot of positive and negative thinking. All of his positive thinking had to do with his experience at Reardan and with the fact that he actually took a step forward in following his dreams. All of his negative thinking, was caused by the depressed and and hopeless lifestyle of the Indians at his reservation and their addiction to alcohol. His perseverance made him keep going to school in Reardan and learn the good lessons that he learned at the end of the story.
Works Cited
Alexie, Sherman. The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian.
New York: Little, Brown, 2007. Print.
