Poverty is a widespread issue that affects individuals and communities worldwide, causing a range of social, economic, and health-related challenges. Junior is the protagonist and narrator of Sherman Alexie’s novel, “The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian” who lives on a Spokane Indian Reservation. Many of the people living on the reservation make minimum wage or are unemployed as there is a lack of jobs on the reservation. Junior’s family lives in poverty, with both parents working low-wage jobs. Poverty, gambling, alcoholism and physical abuse are constantly seen on the reservation and have an impact on Junior’s perspective of his identity as a low-income Native American. In Sherman Alexie’s novel, “The Absolutely True Diary of …show more content…
Throughout the beginning of the novel, Junior experiences difficulty with feelings of low self esteem and worthlessness. Alexie employs dialogue to portray Junior’s perspectives and emotions about his background. Junior often uses a pessimistic tone when referring to his living circumstances, demonstrating that he is ashamed of his socioeconomic status. “I wish I were magical but I am really just a poor-ass-reservation kid living with his poor-ass-family on the poor-ass-Spokane Reservation.” (Alexie 7). Through this quote, the author employs direct characterization to display how poverty negatively impacts Junior’s self-esteem. Alexie directly states how Junior wishes he was magical, illustrating how he sees himself as something less than extraordinary. Further, Junior’s use of the word, “wish” explains how his desire for improving his circumstances are unfulfilled and he feels powerless to change that. Moreover, this use of direct characterization enforces the idea that living in a low-income community can lead to low self esteem and feelings of inadequacy. Secondly, being in the presence of Natives who give up on their hopes due to financial straints can have an impact on one's sense of self. This can lead to feelings of being defined by poverty. Through direct characterization in the form of dialogue, the author portrays how Junior internalizes this mindset. His feelings of hopelessness results in self-blame for his living conditions which exemplifies how poverty causes low self esteem. “It sucks to feel that you somehow deserve to be poor…and because you’re Indian you start believing you’re destined to be poor. It's an ugly circle and there's nothing you can do about it.” (Alexie 13). This quotation exhibits how Alexie uses direct characterization to explore how poverty can be a detriment to one’s self
Poverty is the extent to which an individual does without resources. These resources can be financial, emotional, mental, relational, knowledge of hidden rules, and spiritual. In order to for a person to leave poverty, it is necessary that the individual can be confronted and concern with his current state of life. Flannery O Connor gives us a good example of how poverty (or lack of resources) affects the humans’ decisions. In her story Parker´s Back, Flannery O Connor uses the theme of “poverty” by the description and mannerism of her characters, but also by using a casual-register story structure.
It is always easy to understand if someone is wealthy or less fortunate by where they’re living. The words used in the novel, creates an image of poverty.
Being one of the first quotes in the book, this quote nicely provides a better understanding of the interlocked conditions and problems that those in poverty often face. It beautifully illustrates how the poor are limited by their living and working conditions and find difficulty escaping poverty due to how closely interlocked their conditions are. In order to escape poverty, these individuals have to find a way to solve all of their problems contained within their environment. However, these poor individuals are unable to do so since they are facing financial problems. Reflection
Lizabeth recalls a snippet of her childhood from a first-person point of view, and she explains that as a kid, she was unaware of the poverty that limited her and her family. Years later, Lizabeth tells, “We children, of course, were only vaguely aware of the extent of our poverty. Having no radios, few newspapers, and no magazines, we were somewhat unaware of the world outside our community” (Collier 444). In her narration, Lizabeth explains that from her perspective as a child, she was oblivious to the true extent of her poverty. Lizabeth’s words, “unaware of the world outside,” show how she is trapped in a bubble of ignorance, believing that she is free when in reality, she cannot escape the oppression her family faces.
Poverty is a very serious topic that millions of people all over the world are forced to deal with. However The Absolute Diary of a Part-Time Indian Junior makes the subject as a whole feel more light-hearted and not as serious. For example, he says, "Poverty doesn't give you strength or teach you lessons about perseverance. No, poverty only teaches you how to be poor.” (13) Sherman Alexie uses deadpan/ understatement humor to make a light-hearted joke about growing up in poverty.
In the novel The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, by Sherman Alexie the main character Junior faces many harsh challenges before he chooses to leave the rez. Some of the challenges he faces are poverty, having a disability, and bullying. He must face all of these challenges in order to be the person he is today. In the beginning of the story after we find out that Junior had hydrocephalus we also learn that he and his family are very poor.
One afternoon, while Junior is sitting on his porch, a local teacher from Junior’s school visits him. He gives Junior hope and begins warning him to move somewhere where he can’t give up because everyone around him has already broken down. “...you have to take your hope and go somewhere where other people have hope.” (43) This lights the fire in Junior where he realizes he needs to change everything for his survival or he will crumble.
The community living conditions have created an attitude where it is acceptable not to amount to anything in life. This is not just an effect in this community, but most poverty stricken communities which agrees with both Leventhal and Gorman-Smith statements. Most people living in poverty stricken communities grasp a mindset where there is no escaping poverty. In the book Alexie shows us through, the main character sister Mary, that a negative viewpoint of life can spread. She had dreams to leave the reservation, but they slowly faded away.
When Junior attempted to raise money to help Native Americans out of poverty, he recalls that “there were a lot more people who just called me names and slammed the door in my face,” (Alexie 79). Alongside this, when Junior was supposed to get picked up by his father after school, Junior’s dad “wasn’t sure if he’d have enough gas money. Especially if he was going to stop at the rez casino and play slot machines first,” (Alexie 87). Junior, and his family, weren’t able to gain enough income to purchase what seem to be the smaller things in life. This shows that alongside Junior, people in poverty have the even more overwhelming issue of being unable to gain enough funds to purchase smaller
He offers examples of this with the narrator Junior, people on the Spokane reservation and how their lives differ from wealthier characters like Penelope. These examples include, alcoholism addictions being apparent in poorer communities as represented by the deaths of Eugene and Mary. In addition, poorer individuals do not have access to quality education or sufficient food as seen with Junior’s schools lack of new textbooks and his inability to afford an adequate meal. Lastly, Penelope did not have to worry about money but instead tried to gather money for the “needy”, when Junior actually had the experience of being seen as the “needy.” This shows how Sherman Alexie interprets the impact poverty has on people and how it is a lifelong
Junior loses a lot of friends and family at the young age of fourteen. He gets bullied because he was born with too much cerebral spinal fluid inside his skull, but he has his best friend Rowdy there to help him. Junior realizes that he needs to leave the reservation to get a better life for himself. He goes to a new school off the
In his book the Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, Sherman Alexie portrays a teenage boy, Arnold Spirit (junior) living in white man’s world, and he must struggle to overcome racism and stereotypes if he must achieve his dreams. In the book, Junior faces a myriad of misfortunes at his former school in ‘the rez’ (reservation), which occurs as he struggles to escape from racial and stereotypical expectations about Indians. For Junior he must weigh between accepting what is expected of him as an Indian or fight against those forces and proof his peers and teachers wrong. Therefore, from the time Junior is in school at reservation up to the time he decides to attend a neighboring school in Rearden, we see a teenager who is facing tough consequences for attempting to go against the racial stereotypes.
People in poverty are generally portrayed as worthless and this is because culture today illustrates a man’s worth from how materially successful they are. Hooks explains how this kind of representation of the poor can mentally and emotionally handicap and entire society of people in poverty. She goes into an example of how a
In the passage “What is poverty?”, the author Jo Goodwin Parker, describes a variety of things that she considers to portray the poverty in which she lives in. She seems to do this through her use of first-person point of view to deliver a view of poverty created by a focused use of rhetorical questions, metaphors, imagery, and repetition to fill her audience with a sense of empathy towards the poor. The author’s use of first person point of view creates the effect of knowing exactly what she is feeling. “The baby and I suffered on. I have to decide every day if I can bear to put my cracked hands into the cold water and strong soap.”
For example, Junior's family is very poor and,"It sucks to be poor, and it sucks to feel that you somehow deserve to be poor. You start believing that you're poor because you're stupid and ugly. And then you start believing that you're stupid and ugly because you're Indian. And because you're Indian you start believing you're destined to be poor. It's an ugly circle and there's nothing you can do about it."