Part Time Indian Analysis

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Is it possible for a person to be part time Indian? In the novel The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie, Arnold Spirit, the protagonist, is considered a part time Indian. He is an Indian boy who lives on a reserve and he abandons that school to go to another school that is miles away with only white kids. Throughout the novel Arnold is torn between his family, friends at his reserve, and going to an all-white school outside his home. Some particular themes that kept on appearing was that you should never cut yourself short, family and friends are important and your race should not define you. To begin, you should never accept less for yourself if you deserve better. For example, at the beginning of the novel Arnold …show more content…
For example, when Arnold moved schools all the students at his new school looked at him with disgust and talked very poorly of him. However, Arnold did not “give up” (108). He realized that he was as smart as them and played basketball just like them, but better. After some time pasted most of him classmates started to release that it doesn’t matter was race you are and that race should not decide your fate. All that matters is what person you strive to become. Secondly, when Arnold was back at his old school everybody felt “hope[less]” (43) because they all thought that because they are Indian, there is no hope or future to look forward too. So they never tried to push there limits because they only did what they thought they were suspected to do. Arnold did not lose hope; he left the reservation to find another world with more opportunities and more possibilities. Finally, Arnold fell in love with a white girl at his new school, her name is Penelope. When Arnold first arrived at his new school she did not bother to try to be nice to him, she ignored him and went on with her life. Slowly, Arnold and Penelope start to talk more with each other and start to know more about each other. They start to date and everyone soon found it normal for Arnold, the Indian, and Penelope, white, to be “together” (122) because they started to …show more content…
Through out the novel there have been challenges that the protagonist, Arnold, goes thought and it brightens the reader’s views about the lessons that were brought up. In our everyday life we may face these challenges such as racism, deaths, pier pressure, and people that do not except who people are. You should not let people define who you are or what you are capable of performing, the only person who can identify you is yourself. You should change the changeable, accept the unchangeable, and remove yourself from the
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