The AbsolutelyTrue Diary of a Part-time Indian

Sherman, Alexie

New York: Little, Brown and Company, 2007

Book Summary

The Absolutely True Dairy of a Part-time Indian is the story of Arnold Junior. Because the book is written in first person we get to see all reactions from Junior’s point of view, this is not only evident through the written text but also with the drawings that have been included. In the first chapters we meet Junior and his environment. The story is based on the year in which Junior as changes schools; from going to the school in the reservation to a school across town where he is the only ‘Indian’. Junior has to gain the appreciation and respect of the kids in his new school but he must also try hard to regain the respect the people of the reservation had form him, as they see him as an ‘apple’. The book also gives us insights as to how life in the reservation is like for someone like Junior, Rowdy his friend as well as other community members. It is also the story of how he, as an outsider has to get new friends and become the image for all other ‘Indians’, by showing his knowledge, sportsmanship and in many ways defeat stereotypes. Since Rowdy resents Junior for leaving him behind, Junior acquires new friends at the new school, one of which is Gordy. At his new school he also finds his first girlfriend and through the latter part of the book he learns to deal with loss, as some of his family members pass away.

The Jester archetype: 

Arnold Junior might not seem like the jester archetype at first; however this becomes clearer as he enjoys life and speaks the truth as he faces adversity. Boredom usually leads him to draw funny pictures of the world around him, allowing him to see life in a humouristic light allowing him to laugh at it. This is evident when he talks about poverty and how most readers propably think that being poor means having an empty fridge and therefore an empty stomach. Junior discusses how poverty can be laughed at when KFC is around: “There is nothing better than s chicken leg when you haven’t eaten for (approximately) eighteen-and-a-half hours. And believe me, a good piece of chicken can make anybody believe in the existence of God”(p.8). When he is pushed to euthanize his dog, which is very ill, he offers the following insight “A bullet only costs about two cents, and anybody can afford that” (p. 14). Since the family does not have enough money and although Junior jokingly offers to pay the veterinarian, Junior soon realizes that there is no way he could ever get a job to pay for the bills, as employment is extremely limited in the reservation, further leading him to let go of his dog Oscar.

Junior is very creative as his jokes are not only visible through his drawings but also on the way he sees the world, from the lies or hypothesis he creates as means to solve his life issues. In later portions when he discusses being ‘Indian’ and poverty as a continuous cycle. He argues that “ Adam and Eve covered their privates with fig leaves; the first Indians covered their privates with their tiny hands” (p.11). As he makes friends in the new school he uses his creative jokes to show answer the question about being poor with a drawing: ““Are you poor?”Possible responses: 1) No. 2) Yes. 3) “Pore? You mean, do I have pores? Yes, I have many. 4) Well… poverty is a relative thing…historical theoreticians believe that when you define a certains income as opposed to output, statistics are skewed…Allow me to digress… 5) Gasp! LOOK OVER THERE! Run away!” (p. 130) In a previous page Junior has a drawing of “How to pretend you’re not poor: No lunch money?: ‘I’m not hungry anyway’ (stomach grumbles). Field trip? School Dance?: ‘I can’t make it…yeah I’m really sick…cough cough…’. Bake Sale?: ‘Looks yummy but NATIVE AMERICANS are allergic to sugar…’. Everyone has the latest iPod?: ‘I’m OLD SCHOOL. A good all-purpose excuse: ‘There’s this INDIAN CEREMONY at home…’, ‘Aw man, we’ll miss you…’” (p. 120)

Although Junior uses his cleverness to trick others, he only does it as a means to help him confront the truth. Junior just like the jester archetype wants only to experience life by enjoying each moment. This is clearly shown when Junior in a short period of time loses his dad’s best friend and grandmother: “And I kept trying to find the little pieces of joy in my life. That’s the only way I managed to make it through all of that death and change” (p. 176).

The jester archetype makes himself and those around him happy by quickly putting into evidence the absurdities of the world. Most of all Junior uses his insights as comic relief. For drawing he did of his grandmother he writes: “Make her living selling beaded keychains on eBay (“Highly Sacred Aboriginal Transportation Charms” (p. 69). he later on adds the following description about Ted, a guy who shows up at the grandmother’s wake.”We’d expected this white guy to be original. But he was yet another white guy who showed up on the rez because he loved Indian people SOOOOOOOO much” (p. 162). In the same page Junior adds a drawing of “Ted, [in an] “American Heritage” Pendleton jacket (purchased online for $900), fringed buckskin pants purportedly worn by Geronimo ($150,000, from a private collection), “U.S. Cavalry boots” worn by Kevin Costner in Dances With Wolves (purchased on eBay for $3000), “sacred leather scrotum sheath” purchased from Navajo shaman for $1000 (actually a Kmart Naugahyde baby booty purchased by Navajo conman for $3.99), turquoise .” With this Junior makes fun of how many people go to the reservation to profess their love for ‘Indians’ and ‘their ways’.

For Junior his life is a big joke, more specifically he sees himself in a very funny manner: “I started wearing glasses when I was three, so I ran around the rez looking like a three-year-old grandpa. And, oh, I was so skinny. I’d turn sideways and disappear. … With my big feet and pencil body, I looked like a capital L walking down the road” (p. 3). While some of his jokes might not be politically correct he uses them as means to understand the world and himself. He uses his drawings and words to make others laugh, specially his friend Rowdy: “I like to make him laugh. He loves my cartoons” (p. 23).

The Rebel/Destroyer archetype 

Rowdy is the rebel/destroyer as he eliminates junk in self and society by becoming a bully. This way to answere his problems is something he has learned as a coping mechanism from his dad’s alcohol problem. “His father is drinking hard and tthrowing hard punches, so Rowdy and his mother are always walking around with bruised and bloody faces” (p. 16). As means ot protect himself from getting emotionally hurt and to protect Junior: “He knew that I afraid of getting gbeat up. … Rowdy protected me since we were born”(p.17). Junior also says: “I was born all broken and twisted, and he was born mad” (p.17).

As a destroyer, Rowdy, has difficulty controlling his impulses, using violence to target others and to break things. “Rowdy fought everybody. … Hell, He fought the weather. He’d throw wild punches at rain” (p.18). “Then Rowdy grabbed a shovel … and went after the van. Just beat the crap out of it” (p.20). The violence Rowdy receives is always displaced unto someone else at school: “Whenever he came to school with a black eye, Rowdy made sure to give black eyes to two kids picked at random”(p.41).

Rowdy get very upset with Junior when he hears about the school transfer, demonstrating the primary characteristic of the rebel/destroyer by assuming he should cut his losses by punching Junior. While Junior knows beforehand that Rowdy will be very upset when he hears about the transfer he feel is it his duty to let his best friend know. Rowdy after hearing the news he becomes enraged “Bang! Rowdy punched [Junior]. Bang! [Junior] hit the ground. Bang! [Junior’s] nose bled like a firework.”(p.52). As the loss of his best friend strikes Rowdy is pushed to recreate his life in order to move on, requiring him to let go of much of what they had, like all the memories they made. “

While he feels confused he tries to grapple with the issues that arise, further allowing him to gain the wisdom to change what you can and accept what you cannot, opening to being transformed through the experience. Even if the readers are unable to see the transformation take place we can see Rowdy’s attitude change toward Junior as he realizes that his friend never went away, instead he is just attending a different school.

As the rebel/destroyer archetype he wants to be seen as whole, even as he is experiencing difficult times, hesitating to share the immensity of what he is going through. Although Rowdy has some sense that the destroyer is an external force and is not able to change the way he responds to it, he continues on his destructive path by bullying others.

The Sage archetype

Gordy is Junior’s first true friend at his new school, described as a book worm by Junior himself. Gordy as the sage assume that the truth is the basis of life, setting him free. He is knowledgeable and in a sense he is also wise. Gordy is very curious and enjoys takine his time to think about things as a means to filter out his own biases, leading him to be as objective as possible. As a sage archetype, Gordy, is motivated by a genuine hunger for truth, which is evident in many of the scenes Junior and Gordy share. Gordy argues that in order to really appreciate books Junior must read them at least three times before he can truly understand them. “ “The first time you read it for the story. The plot. The movementfrom scene to scene that gives the book its momentum, its rythim”(p.94). “The second time you read a book, you read it for its history. For its knowledge ofhistory. You think about the meaning of each word, and where that word came from.” (p.95). While does not disclose the main reason for reading books a third time he does argues that Junior’s way of understanding the world is great in its own way. After Junior tells Gordy he draws cartoons to help him understandthe world then Gordy says: “If you’re good at it, and you love it, and it helps you navigate the river of the wolrd, then it can’t be wrong” (p.95). Gordy also reassures Junior that although it is good to take things seriously they shoulc never be taken too seriously. The latter is another example of how the sage archetype excels at evaluating the merits of relative truths and commits to people and ideas even in the face of the realization that it is impossible to know anything for sure.

When Junior asks Gordy for help as to how Junior can get a white girl to love him, Gordy tells him he must research it first. “A few days later, he gave me a brief report… “I looked up ‘in love with a white girl’ on Google and found an article…”” (p.116). Showing that when issues arise, the sage archetype is present in Gordy, as he research how others have addressed the issue before. Gordy’s analysis further shows his possible answer for the issue as being that Junior only cares for white girls. “White girls are privileged. They’re damsels in distress. … I think it means you’re just as racist” (p.116), are his words to Junior and a way as to how he has taken action to solve the problem presented. This also represents the sage’s tendency to be dogmatic and opinionated, towards ordinary life and affairs.

Gordy loves ideas and the process of thinking, allowing him to lead a life of the mind rather than by experiencing. This is clearly demonstrated as he talks about the world within the written texts of libraries. ““The world, even the smallest parts of it, is filled with things you don’t know”” (p.97). Yet this immense capacity to contain knowledge also has a keen ability to see the flaws in opinions and practices can take a negative or cynical turn. After Junior tells Gordy that many in the reservation’s community thinks of him as an apple: ““They call me an apple because they think I’m red on the outside and white on the inside.” “Ah, so they think you are a traitor.”” (p.132). To this, Gordy’s philosophical insight followed: “Well, life is a constant struggle between being an individual and being a member of the community.” (p. 132) Junior continues asking Gordy for what he means, and Gordy responds that usually a community that finds one of its member unfit, meaning that he is unable to help the community in one way or another, those unfit members get banished. While Junior believes times have changed, Gordy insist that since Junior no longer seems to help out his community, he is therefore being banished by the other members.

Gordy is the sage archetype as he breaths as lives books. Junior describes Gordy as a genius and from the way he talks, Junior goes on to say: “God this kid was an eighty-year-old literature professor trapped in the body of the fifteen-year-old farm boy” (p.93). Gordy likes to undertake processes of discovering the truth. Identified as an expert by others in the school, not just students but teachers too he demonstrates his knowledge. In an incident where the science teacher is discussing petrified wood, Junior tries to correct him. “Petrified wood is not wood” (p.84). Junior goes on to tell the teacher how the minerals in the soil replace the wood “So, uh, you see, the wood has not turned into rocks. The rocks have replaced the wood” (p.85). This angers the teacher, and questions Junior as to where he learns the facts. As Gordy argues that Junior is indeed correct he says: “Arnold is right about petrified truth. That’s what happens” (p.86). This shows how others seek him as an advisor as the teacher tries to catch Junior in a mistake.