Final Draft: The Absolute True Dairy of A Part-Time Indian

Gregorio Gomez

3/1/2014

Mr. DeWit

English 102

Absolute True Dairy of A Part-Time Indian

How can you succeed when you were born to fail? What kind of future can you have when all you see around you is failure. Motivation comes from within ones heart or mind, if you have a goal you will do anything and overcome everything in your path no matter how hard it is. Making a simple decision can create an obstacle that you may have to take down in the future, regretting it shows how strong you are inside, but overcoming the obstacle shows how strong you are inside and outside. In the Absolute True Diary of A Part-Time Indian by Alexie Sherman Junior or Arnold shows how strong he is through out his depressing and tough moments. He shows courage and fear at the same time knowing he can overcome these obstacles. Junior goes through deaths and loses his friend when thinking about his future. Growing up in nothing but failure can destroy someone mentally and can only make one think if there is more out there for them or is this all they are going to have for the rest of their life.

Junior never really thought about his future as much, he was not worried about it, but he knew where he stood. Junior can see all the poverty around him all the poor families that were exactly like him or even worse. Junior was not a popular guy where he lived in the reservation he was more like the opposite, he was a loser and he knew it. He would always get picked on and get into fights. The worst fight he was in was when the bully made him beat up himself, “One bully, Micah, made me beat up myself. Yes, he made me punch myself in the face three times.”(Alexie 64) As you can see he is not a good fighter. He never knew how to fight, but he never backed down no matter who it was. Junior never got advice from anyone or any good advice that he would consider thinking about until he met a very strange man, his teacher Mr. P. Mr. P in my opinion helped junior make the first move in changing his life, it didn’t start off good, but Mr. P looked inside himself and wanted to make a change and help Junior to get out of the rez “You can’t give up, you won’t give up. You threw that book at my face because you refuse to give up” (Alexie 44). If it was not for Mr. P’s truthful words Junior would of never realized what kind of future he would of had if he didn’t make the move he did which was leaving the reservation. He would be another average Indian living in poverty doing nothing with his life. Junior had analyzed his life at that very moment and became a new Indian kid.

A life decision he made was moving to a new school and leaving the reservation. That was courageous of him where he knew everything was going to change. Moving to Reardan was the scariest thing to him ever. He was surrounded by transparent white kids that he had nothing in common with. Their style of clothes was different, the way they looked and even their english was different from his even though it was the same language. Nothing happened to him for a couple of days, until the second week. In my eyes Junior felt as if he was at the reservation again he started to get called names by the transparent kids and got in to a fight. Now this was nothing to Junior it was child's play he had already been bullied so it did not affect him and ignoring it was easy. Junior had already lost his best friend Rowdy who would protect him in any fight so he knew if anything ever happened he would have to stick up for himself. The next day he got into a fight, how do you, a skinny “L” shaped kid fight off a big, tall and strong white boy? Junior was in a situation where he needed a miracle where the gods of heaven can send him Rowdy his best friend to help him. The last thing I thought Junior would do was hit the guy and that was the first thing he did. In that scene I realized that Junior was not just a risk taker, but he was crazy in the head. That whole act of courage and heroics saved him and got him respect from everybody from that point on.

Junior was not facing any problems at Reardan he met a girl he liked named Penelope and became good friends with her until he experienced one of the hardest death he would of never wanted to think of and that was his grandma. At this moment he hated everything and everybody. I thought to myself how does one over come a grandmothers death especially when she gets killed by a drunk diver. In this scene Arnold matures and becomes bold because his grandmas last dying wish was to forgive the man. Anyone in this world can forgive, but never forget. For someone to go on days, weeks and months losing someone that everybody cares about can really destroy you mentally. It can make a person give up on what they were chasing for in the first place. Junior on the other hand continued he was not just going to quit and stop on everything he worked for he was to far ahead to even think about it. He was now going to make something of himself while going to Reardan, but he was not going to do it for himself now, he was going to do it for his grandma.

One of my favorite scenes in the book is when both Junior and Rowdy climb the tallest pine tree in the reservation. Knowing that Junior was scared he still did it. Rowdy as always was the brave one. “I spit on my hand and rubbed them together and reached for the first branch.”(Alexie 225) While climbing higher and higher the branches would start to get thinner. Both Junior and Rowdy did not stop they kept going, they both stopped at The Summit, close to the top because the branches were to thin to step on. For both Junior and Rowdy to climb the tallest pine tree in the rez made them fearless. They did not care about the consequences all they cared about was that they both made it together and even if they both fell down, I do not think they would of minded as long as they were next to each other everything was fine. While Junior was up there he saw his whole reservation, and thought how beautiful it looked, “ We could see our entire world. And our world, at the moment, was green and golden and perfect”(Alexie 226). He was appreciating what he had in life at that very moment and maybe saw what his grandma was seeing all these years and that was the value of what one has at that very moment.

A scene that connects to the pine tree is at the end of the book. When both Junior and Rowdy play basketball until the dark sky cannot turn any darker. Rowdy finally accepts Juniors move to Reardan and realizes that it was either him or Junior that was going to move out. Rowdy always knew it was going to be Junior. Why, because Rowdy never got the same motivation or the same talk Mr. P gave Junior. Rowdy realizes how great it was to be Juniors friend and questions their friendship, “Will we still know each other when we’re old men I asked. Who knows anything? Rowdy asked”(Alexie 230) The reason why that sentence right there ties up to the whole book is because no one knows whats going to happen in life. Both of these boys have realize life is not what you expect and it is better to enjoy the little thing while you can because you never know what can happen at that moment. Maybe Junior and Rowdy stayed friends maybe not, the important thing is that they have each other right now and nothing can separate them from each other. 

How does one succeed without taking risks. How far can you go without making choices? Taking the other path instead of the same path others take can create new beginnings. Being curious and scared is probably the best thing you can feel when you have a goal, once you achieve it you won’t regret it, the best thing anyone can feel is happiness. They say dreams are only in your sleep, I don’t think that’s true. Anybody can reach a dream just by chasing it, even when they are awake.