...If it wasn't for three significant events in Juniors first year of high school he might be dead. The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, by Sherman Alexie, recounts the life events that an Indian boy named Junior goes through, his struggles, and the critical decision he makes to change what would otherwise be a disastrous life. Against all odds he must somehow find a way to raise himself above the many obstacles that he will face. It is the choices he makes in several critical circumstances that allow him to escape the clutches of this dismal system. It all started when Junior was in school on the Indian reservation. "I couldn't believe it" (Alexie 31) Junior thought to himself. Junior was fed up with the old book that belonged to his mother and took action on his impulse and blasted the ancient object at his teacher, Mr.P. He was dying to start geometry and his expectation and hopes were completely shattered. If this didn't happen Mr.P wouldn't have later apologized and advised Junior to leave the hopeless reservation. This clearly was a significant event that begins to change his life and forces him to think about...
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...Arnold’s Determination Arnold is a boy born with many brain problems, despite his brain problems he turns out to be one of the most determined people in his community. The Absolutely True Diary of a Part Time Indian is a book by Serman Alexie about a boy named Arnold and his life. Arnold grows up with two undependable parents, and his dad was an alcoholic while his mother was an alcoholic. He grows up having a hard life because of his brain damage, so if he gets hit in the head he will suffer severe consequences. Also his parents do not have much money that would help get treatment for his condition. Arnold lives on a reservation with his best friend Rowdy, one day Arnold decides he wants a better life and decides to switch to an mostly all white school called Rearden, with this decision he lost many friends and community members but stays devoted to stay at Rearden. Arnold with his brain damage stays insistent to go to Rearden, make the basketball team at Rearden, and eventually beats his...
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...English 113B 20 Apr 2015 Identity Crisis and Resolution in The Absolutely True Diary of a Part Time Indian It is natural for every person that he finds himself in a conflicting situation where he thinks that he has no identity. In such a situation of crisis, he asserts himself through different means though it may be a bitter truth or he himself gets insult in response. Arnold in The Absolute True Diary of a Part Time Indian faces the same situation, but he does not leave the truth. Whatever he has encountered in reservation or at Reardan, he has plainly told it in a very simple language that it seems touching obscenity and crossing the limits of decency. However, the struggle Arnold waged in order to...
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...How can somebody persevere through racism, poverty, and death? What if they're only fourteen years old? Is the struggle even worth it? In the semi-autobiographical novel The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie, the main character, Junior, learns that through perseverance, hope, and the gain of new knowledge, life can get better for anybody (white or otherwise). He overcomes a major school change, abandonment of friends, and the death of family members, but in the bittersweet end, things have started to look up for him. There is evidence of this occurring throughout the book, starting with Junior's (former) pet dog Oscar. On page 15, the quote "After Oscar died, I was so depressed that I thought about crawling into a hole and disappearing forever" tells us that Junior maybe doesn't deal with grief in the healthiest way. However, by page 215, Junior writes "We Indians know how to celebrate our with our dead. And I felt okay" showing that at this point, he's learned how to get through the struggle of the death of his grandmother. Through time, and with the new lessons he's learned, he gained the gift of acceptance....
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...Great decisions come with great thought and time. In Sherman Alexie’s The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-time Indian, Junior had a dilemma that would ultimately affect his life. Although, the pressure was building up Junior made the right decision to leave the Rez and attend Reardan because of the environment and the opportunity to grow and prosper. There was a greater opportunity for growth in Reardan mostly because of their white middle-class population.According to the National Survey on Drug Use and Health, nearly 9.2% of Native Americans ages 12 and older were current heavy alcohol users, the highest rate of any ethnic group (Hanes 1) while at Reardan a typical middle-class neighborhood almost “more than half of the graduating class...
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...Racial Discrimination in The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian In our world, many of us have either experienced or witnessed the harmful acts of racial discrimination. This includes the use of racial slurs, and slavery. Today, people are more accepting of all faiths and backgrounds. This is one theme that is explored in The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian. The protagonist in this novel is a 14-year-old boy named Junior. He is a member of the Spokane Indian Tribe. Throughout the novel, Junior and the people around him, are being abused through racial slurs. Because of the false accusations that usually form racial discrimination, it has the ability to pose a changing impact, directly or indirectly to our society. In this novel, Junior decides to attend a school featuring students from a dominant white culture. The following quote is an example of how racial discrimination can have a direct impact on our society. “(W)hat was I doing at Reardan, whose mascot was an Indian, thereby making me the only other Indian in town” (56). This describes Junior’s reaction towards seeing...
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...Should the Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian be taught? The book The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian should be taught at Douglas High School. It has a lot of good life lessons in it for people to learn. It has many themes that are relevant in today’s society such as, loss, addiction, alcoholism, hope, and many more. The book may have many inappropriate things in it, but it’s still worth taking a lesson from it. If taught at a high school, those inappropriate things might actually keep people reading and get a kick out of it. The book itself is pretty short, so it’s a short and sweet lesson teachers can do with their class if they can look past the inappropriate humor, harsh language, racism, talking about sexual things,...
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...Indians have been stereotyped and discriminated by many for abusing alcohol, so people don’t believe they can achieve anything. The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, by Sherman Alexie, is a young adult book about a boy named Junior who decides to leave the reservation to attend an all white school to better his education. This book has been challenged quite frequently, but it has not been banned as often. The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian should not be banned because Junior shows humor, determination, and criticism from others. The main character Junior likes to use a great deal of humor because he likes to make life enjoyable. On the first day of high school Junior was in Geometry class and he starts to talk about...
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...While reading the book, The Absolutely True Diary Of A Part-Time Indian, the main character Junior is living in an undersized Indian Reservation. Within the society, many Indian adults do not get treated equally and don't have as many job opportunities. Which creates a low-income for all the children they might have. Many Indians within the culture grow up poor and have to live every day hoping for food and praying that they don't get sick, Like Junior. Since Junior is poor he has some different characteristics as other “white kids”, “if I turned sideways I would disappear”(3). Junior has to suffer from limited food because his family can afford much, also the fact that he has more than “a few” siblings does not help because they'll have to...
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...The Absolutely True Diary of Part-Time Indian: a Journey of Hope “There is another world, but it is in this one” (W.B Yeats), this is how Sherman Alexie managed to begin the journey of his eye-opening novel, The Absolutely True Dairy of Part-time Indian. It is a magnificent story of overcoming the obstacles of being an Indian teenager while stepping outside of the reservation world and striving for better opportunities in the world. Junior, who carries the Native American blood in his roots, gives an insight into Native American culture, encompassing all of its sacred and astonishing details. Through Junior’s experience and between the storylines, various aspects of the Spokane Indians community are revealed, such as poverty, alcoholism, and kinship that make the novel stand as an unique Indian literature piece....
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...that relates to the relationship between Arnold Junior and his basketball coach in The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie. Even though Junior had only known his coach for a short amount of time, he has changed his outlook on his life in a positive way. Coach helped push him past the expectations people have for a reservation Indian. They have an important relationship because he teaches Junior he is more capable than he thinks and boosts his self confidence. If Junior had not connected with Coach he would not have had a positive outlook on his basketball skills and future. “Coach was thinking I would be an all-state player in a few years. He was thinking maybe I’d play some college ball. It was crazy. How often does a reservation Indian kid here that? How often do you hear the words “Indian” and “college” in the same sentence?”(180) Is a quote from the novel that proves how much Coach believes in Junior despite the fact he is Indian, and the way he thinks about him and his potential does not change. His words prove that he is different than other white people and help Junior believe in himself. “You’re starting tonight. And you’re going to guard Rowdy. The whole game. He’s your man. You have to stop him. If you stop him, we win this game....
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...Sitting in the library, in my hands is my favorite book , when i realized other people's cant have their favorite book in their hands the hard copy .Others can’t read their adored book because the books are banned or censored just because others dislike or disagree .Book banning and censorship has been a big deal all around the states . Google says censorship is “the suppression or prohibition of any parts of books, films, news, etc. that are considered obscene, politically unacceptable, or a threat to security.” I believe censorship and banned books should not be required in some books for instance Alice and the adventure Wonderland have no reasonable reason to be...
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...Sherman Alexie ENG 150 – Critical Analysis Assignment Fingerprints Recently, I was introduced to a man named Sherman Alexie. See, what I liked about Sherman from the beginning was the dissimilarity we shared. Too often, as a society we get so caught up in the bait of commonality that we forget it’s the differences that make us individuals. His family was not like mine. The significant values that shape a young man’s life, like Sherman’s and mine, were founded on different life experiences and were respected on unfamiliar levels. I came to see he loved differently and for different reasons. He esteemed for different reasons and his perception on life was remarkable yet understated. Sherman had a way of seeing things… the realness he bestowed was astonishing, but more importantly, he was able to help me see differently too. You’re asking, “Where did you meet this Sherman Alexie?” The answer to that question is difficult to state because I feel like I’ve known him my whole life, but I doubt he’d say the same of me. The Absolutely True Story of a Part Time Indian is a novel by Sherman Alexie written for anyone willing to read it. It displays his inner deepest thoughts through the story of a young man named Junior. The great thing about being introduced to a man through his work is that he reveals himself to you through nothing but the deepest and best thoughts; and Sherman had many. Sherman Alexie was a Native American who grew up on a reservation in Spokane...
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... 581) TABLE OF CONTENTS CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION 1 1.1. Objectives 2 1.2. Research Methodology 2 1.3. Hypothesis 2 1.4. Definitions 3 1.4.1. Police 3 1.4.2. Torture 4 CHAPTER 2: HISTORICAL BACKGROUND 6 CHAPTER 3: CUSTODIAL TORTURE AND RELATED DIMENSIONS 10 3.1. Categories 10 3.1.1. Physical torture 10 3.1.2. Custodial Death 12 3.1.3. Custodial Rape 13 3.2. Causes 14 3.2.1. Structural 14 3.2.2. Other Causes 15 3.3. Consequences 16 3.3.1. Physical Consequences 16 3.3.2. Psychological Consequences 16 3.3.3. Economic Consequences 16 3.3.4. Social Consequences 16 CHAPTER 4: LEGISLATIVE PROVISIONS 17 4.1. The Constitution of India, 1950 17 4.2. The Criminal Procedure Code, 1973 18 4.3. Indian Evidence Act, 1872 19 4.4. Protection of Human Rights Act, 1993 20 4.4.1. The National Human Rights Commission 20 CHAPTER 5: JUDICIAL PRONOUNCEMENTS 22 5.1. Monetary Compensation and Judicial Response 25 5.2. Judgements Awarding Compensation 27 5.3. Judgments Awarding Punishment 28 CHAPTER 6: INTERNATIONAL PROTECTION AGAINST TORTURE 29 6.1. Major International Conventions / Instruments on Torture 30 6.1.1. International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, 1986 30 6.1.2. The Torture Convention, 1984 30 6.1.3. The Optional Protocol 31 6.1.4. The Committee against Torture 32 6.1.5. The Convention on the Rights of the Child, 1987 32 6.1.6. Declaration on the Elimination of Violence against Women, 1993 33 6.1...
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...stories, and essays are very widely read, and the songs he composed reverberate around the eastern part of India and throughout In contrast, in the rest of the world, especially in Europe and America, the excitement that Tagore's writings created in the early years of the twentieth century has largely vanished. The enthusiasm with which his work was once greeted was quite remarkable. Gitanjali, a selection of his poetry for which he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1913, was published in English translation in London in March of that year, and had been reprinted ten times by November, when the award was announced. But he is not much read now in the West, and already by 1937, Graham Greene was able to say: "As for Rabindranath Tagore, I cannot believe that anyone but Mr. Yeats can still take his poems very seriously." The Mystic The contrast between Tagore's commanding presence in Bengali literature and culture, and his near-total eclipse in the rest of the world, is perhaps less interesting than the distinction between the view of Tagore as a deeply relevant and many-sided contemporary thinker in Bangladesh and India, and his image in the West as a repetitive and remote spiritualist. Graham Greene had, in fact, gone on to explain that he associated Tagore "with what Chesterton calls 'the bright pebbly eyes' of the Theosophists." Certainly, an air of mysticism played some part in the "selling" of Rabindranath Tagore to the West...
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