Summary: The Absolutely True Diary Of A Part Time Indian

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Pages: 4
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Manjot Kailey
Ms. McCloskey
English
October 22, 2014
The Absolutely True Diary of a Part Time Indian
In The Absolutely True Diary of a Part Time Indian by Sherman Alexie, published in 2007, the main character is Arnold Spirit. Arnold Spirit (a.k.a Junior) was born with few medical problems, as he likes to call it “water on the brain”. Arnold is born in very poor family, which lives on the Reservation. Arnold is picked by mostly everyone except his best friend, Rowdy, who protect Arnold from people. Seeking for Good education, Arnold decides to leave reservation and transfer to Reardan, a rich, white farm town. There is no Indian kid who went to Reardan and Arnold is the first one. Most importantly, Arnold made that decision because he needed …show more content…
“Those kids were magnificent. They knew everything. And they were beautiful. They were beautiful and smart. They were beautiful smart and epic. They were filled with hope.” (50). Arnold extol the white kids because he never knew how smart he is compared to the white kids. He don’t realize that until Mr. Dodge asked the class a question and Arnold was the first person to raise his hand. In addition, Arnold’s answer was correct. “Uh actually,” Gordy said, “Arnold is right about petrified wood. That’s what happens” (86). The class didn’t even believe him until Gordy, the class genius, raised his hand and agreed with Arnold’s answer. Another misconception Arnold have about the white people is that they are perfect. “But Penelope starts crying, talking about how lonely she is, and how everybody thinks her life is perfect because she’s pretty and smart and popular, but that she’s scared all the time, but nobody will let her be scared because she’s pretty and smart and popular” (108). Arnold realize that Penelope is just like his dad but the only difference is that his dad drinks his pain away and Penelope gorges on her pain, throws it up, and flushes it away. Moreover, he realize that all white people aren’t perfect because they are also human beings and every human being have problems. Penelope was living by societies’ rules and she was showing the personality that people wanted to see. Just like Arnold, she had dreams and she want to be remembered. In these ways, Arnold’s misconception of the world was different than the
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