Three Vignettes From the Novel "The Diary of a Part-Time Indian"

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Final Essay
Part 1
Sherman Alexie's book The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian follows the journey of young Native American Arnold Spirit Jr. as he transfers from his community school to a predominantly white high school in a neighboring town. The struggle to find one's place in the world and concerns about identity, poverty, and racism are all themes dealt with in the book. Through Arnold's struggles and triumphs, the novel paints a powerful picture of the complex and often painful realities of life on a reservation and the challenges faced by Native American youth in modern society. It is a powerful and thought-provoking novel that offers a unique and important perspective on contemporary Native American life. In this essay, three vignettes from the novel that can help one appreciate the entire book are discussed.
The first vignette that is a significant representation of the entire work is a scene in which Junior describes how he is treated by other children in the white school:
“None of those guys punched me or got violent. After all, I was a reservation Indian and no matter how geeky or weak I appeared to be, I was a potential killer. So mostly they called me names. Lots of names (Alexei 63).”
The vignette details the experience of Junior in a school where he is the only Native American child. In the vignette, Junior punched one of the kids following a disagreement, but the kid does not fight back as the school is highly prestigious and students did not rely on first to solve their problems. The vignette reveals the role of identity in shaping how Native Americans were viewed by members of other races. One would think that the fact that Junior was not physically abused by other students was positive, but the vignette reveals that Junior does not appreciate the fact that other children failed to consider him a normal child who wanted to be a part of the school (Davis-Delano, Gone, and Fryberg 620). At the same time, the vignette reveals the theme of racism that is prevalent in the writing. The fact that Junior was an Indian meant that he was assigned identities that were largely constructed from the stereotypes that the children at the school had heard about Native Americans. Even though junior describes himself as a weak child in the vignette, he is considered a potential killer as that was the prevailing image of the Native Americans among the White Americans.
The second vignette that captures the message of the entire novel is the scene that involves the death of Junior’s dog. Oscar. In the scenes, Junior describes how his dog was killed by his father as the family could not afford to pay the fees required to take Oscar to a veterinarian:
And I carried him out to the lawn, and I laid him down beneath our green apple tree. “I love you, Oscar,” I said. He looked at me and I swear to you that he understood what was happening. He knew what Dad was going to do. But Oscar wasn’t scared. He was relieved. But not me. I ran away as fast as I could. I wanted to run faster than the speed of sound, but nobody, no matter how much pain they are in, can run that fast. So I heard the boom of my father’s rifle when ...