Part Time Indian Final Draft Essay

Finding Oneself

 

When a challenge is thrown at you how do you deal with it? Do you curl up in a ball and start crying or do you turn the challenge into a goal and accomplish it? Life is full of challenges and making a decision. Every day a new challenge is thrown at us and we are expected to know what to do with it. The way you handle a challenge will determine where you go in life. Some are easy to handle and others, not so easy. Some people may sink below and some may rise above and come out on top of challenges in life. You may have to make the decision of being disowned by the people you grew up around to rise above and live a life nobody expected or stay in a place where alcohol is an issue and you are bound to follow in those footsteps. However, one challenge we all deal with in life is finding ourselves as a person. It is not something that can be done quickly and may take more time than others. In The Absolutely True Diary of a Part Time Indian by Sherman Alexie, a young boy named Arnold is in a crisis of resolving his split personality which leads him on a search for his true identity.
            “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.” (Alexie, 13). Arnold was a fourteen year old boy with big feet and a pencil body who draws cartoons as a way of expressing himself. One of his drawings describes himself in “all of his glory” as a goofy looking kid. He is surrounded by a community full of outcasts. Everyone on the reservation is poor and any money that they have they spend it on alcohol. Arnold knows what alcohol has done to everyone. They have used it as a source of healing one’s pain. Arnold does not want that. He wants to be able to follow his dreams but when you have no money, how is that possible? He didn’t want to be another alcoholic Indian boy living on the reservation the rest of his life. He needed something or someone to help him realize his full potential. His first day at a white high school would be that change.

A suspension from school for throwing a book at a teacher would change Arnold’s life. Arnold’s anger gets the best of him and takes it out on his teacher by throwing a book at him because he find his moms name in the book. The poverty of his community and his family is affecting Arnold mentally in a negative way. “You kept your hope. And now, you have to take your hope and go somewhere where other people have hope.” (Alexie, 43).  His teacher, Mr. P, finally made Arnold realize that he doesn’t have to live a life where he can’t follow his dreams when he talks to Arnolds on his porch. He can go live a life where he actually has a chance at succeeding and that chance was to transfer school to a place called Reardan. It was a school miles away from the reservation for the white people. Indians saw white people as having the most hope. Arnold saw it as a chance to strive but by doing that he would risk the chance of torture from the Indians on the reservation for leaving and being with the white people.

“I woke up on the reservation as an Indian, and somewhere on the road to Reardan, I became something less than an Indian. And once I arrived at Reardan, I became something less than less than Indian. (Alexie, 83).” Arnold is now transitioning from an Indian boy to a rich, white version of himself. He tried his very best to fit in with everyone else but he realized it was not an easy thing to do. It took numerous attempts for him to finally gain Penelope, the white girl that he saw as beautiful, friendship and that is when things started to change. The way Penelope viewed him changed everybody else’s perspective on him. Nobody wanted anything to do with him till now. He even kept his poverty a secret. “What would they think of me if they knew I sometimes had to hitchhike to school? Yeah, so I pretended to have a little money. I pretended to be middle class. I pretended I belonged.” (Alexie, 119). However Penelope would eventually find out of his poverty but things did not change between them. Arnold slowly became more comfortable with his Indian traits. “If you let people into your life a little bit, they can be pretty damn amazing.” (Alexie, 129). Arnold never let people into his life. He stuck with his best friend Rowdy and that’s it. Everybody else treated him horribly and he is finally realizing how good it feels to meet new people that actually treat him nice. This was a big step in his process of finding his true identity.

“I was a warrior! And that’s when I knew I was going to make the team. Heck, I ended up on the varsity. As a freshman.” (Alexie, 143). Arnold was not going to try out for the basketball team. He saw himself as being on the C squad and not playing at all. The fact that he made the team was a big confidence booster for Arnold. Against his old high school and best friend however, Arnold would end up where he thought he always belonged at the bottom. “Wellpinit ended up winning by thirty points. I ended up with a minor concussion.” (Alexie, 147). As if going to a white school wasn’t a challenge, Arnold faced a new one. He would play his old high school one more time and he would end up guarding Rowdy the entire game. Rowdy was the one who gave him a concussion earlier in the season and to win against his old high school of Indians would be the final stop of his journey. Through everything he has gone through, being picked on, harmed by the words of his fellow community for leaving, it all came down to a basketball game. Reardan would win that game and Arnold was the hero for stopping Rowdy and helping his team win. After the win he came back to his Indian senses. “But I looked over at the Wellpinit Redskins, at Rowdy. I knew that two or three of those Indians might not have eaten breakfast this morning.” (Alexie, 195). Arnold realized the shame in the win. The white people had it all but the Indians had nothing. The white people had money and the Indians are struggling to survive. Arnold saw the differences in both the Indians and the Whites but it finally made sense when he and Rowdy reminisced about an old adventure.

“We could see from one end of the reservation to the other. We could see our entire world. And our entire world, at that moment, was green and golden and perfect.” (Alexie, 226). Arnold’s quest to the top of a tree a hundred feet in the air with Rowdy represented all the struggles that he has gone through while in search of himself. Looking down at the reservation made him realize how pretty the reservation really was. Just because he was leaving the reservation did not mean he was in the midst of becoming a “white” man. He was only in search of himself but also for a meaning in life. “Just as I would always love and miss my reservation and tribe. I hoped and prayed that they would someday forgive me for leaving them.” (Alexie, 230). He realizes how much of an impact this quest for himself has lead too. He did things no Indian has done before like leaving the reservation and going to a white school. This scene is where Arnold finally understands himself. He was an Indian boy from a poor reservation but had to leave to fulfill his own dreams.

Arnold’s journey of resolving his split personality of an outcast on his Indian reservation or the white Arnold that goes to Reardan led him on a roller coaster journey. His journey lead him to accept himself as the Indian boy he really is. Being up in that tree with Rowdy made him realize the beauty of the reservation and forget about everything else. Alcohol was bound to catch up to him like it had with his dad but his family knew he had potential to be better away from the reservation rather than staying there the rest of his life. Him leaving the reservation was not him becoming part of the “white people”, it was simply him getting away to follow his dreams and save himself from the evils of the reservation. He hoped one day that everybody else on the reservation would one day take a risk and find their true identities.