Part-Time Indian Struggles

Words: 493
Pages: 2

“Eugene was shot and killed by one of his good friends, Bobby, who was too drunk to even remember pulling the trigger.”(Alexie, 169). In the novel “The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian” The author Sherman Alexie wrote about the character Junior and his family's struggles. Junior and his family go through many struggles such as death, problems with family and poverty. Mary Junior sister, Eugene Juniors dads friend, and Juniors grandma were all killed because of alcohol, Rowdy is abused and Juniors dad is an alcoholic, the main reason this happens on the reservation is because of the poverty, most of the income goes towards alcohol and all the people living on the reservation drink to cope with the sadness. Alcohol is something that shouldn’t be …show more content…
Characters such as Rowdy were abused. As a result of verbal abuse, Junior gets mad at Rowdy’s dad, “You’re kinda gay, aren’t you?”(Alexie, 103). Junior was abandoned during christmas because his dad was drunk and spent all of the money on alcohol. As a consequence of alcoholism, Junior’s father left the house for a few days to drink. “Drunk for a week, my father must have really wanted to spend those last five dollars.”(Alexie,153). This is how alcohol affects families.
In effect, everyone on the reservation are in poverty because of alcohol. As a result of poverty, the people on the reservation sometimes don’t eat meals. “I wish I were magical, but I am just a poor reservation kid living with his poor family on the poor Spokane Indian Reservation.”(Alexie, 7). Most of the families on the reservation drink alcohol to cope with the sadness. Because of the high poverty, it is hard to move around from place to place because lack of gas. “Don’t have enough gas.”(Alexie,70). The reservation has lots of poverty because bunch of the income goes towards alcohol. This is why there is poverty on the