Part Time Indian Life Lessons Essay

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Life Lessons in The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian
The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie is about Arnold Spirit leaving Wellpinit on the Rez to an all white school called Reardan in hope for a better future. Throughout the novel, Arnold learns a few life lessons that impact his choices, which would be, community, decisiveness, and hope. He learns about community as he meets new people and connects with others. With the support of his community, his confidence increases which leads to him being more decisive. Along with his decisiveness, he has a sense of hope with his decisions that are gained from the support of his community as well. When it comes to community, Arnold’s perspective about people and his surroundings expanded the more he opened up. An example would be in the beginning of the novel where he’s hanging out with Rowdy. “I draw him cartoons to make him happy, to give him other worlds to live inside… he only talks about his dreams with me. And I only talk about my dreams with him.” (Pg 23).
In the chapter associated with this quote, his friend Rowdy is described as a short tempered person, but the reason why they are friends is because they
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In the beginning, Arnold was nervous about transferring to Reardan but, he still made the decision to go. “‘I want to go to Reardan,’... ‘No, if I don’t go now, I never will. I have to do it now” (Pg 45-46). After Mr. P suggests that Arnold should leave the Rez, he chooses Reardan which greatly differs from Wellpinit. Another example would be when he refuses to back out of the basketball game. “‘You don’t have to play this one,’ he said. ‘Yes I do,’ I said.” (Pg 143). Even though Arnold was shown contempt from the people in the Rez, he decides to persevere and play the game. Because of this lesson, Arnold became a more confident and hopeful person when it came to making