Jose Munoz
Prof. DeWitt
Eng. 102
2/27/14
I, Arnold
In “The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian” by Sherman Alexie, Arnold, the main character, is a Spokane Indian living on the reservation. Although he has come to term of how things are run there and has a witty way of looking at them, he is soon faced with the realization that he must leave the suppressive reservation, in order to pursue a more meaningful and benefiting life elsewhere. However, once he moves to his new school, he finds out the way the system works in Reardan high school, is far different from the reservation and it ultimately force him question who he is when question this new world to him.
When Arnold starts his first day in high school in the reservation, he expects a good enough quality education despite this being a reservation school. As he enters his class with content he receives his first textbook, “I grabbed my book and opened it up. I wanted to smell it. Heck, I wanted to kiss it” (30). At this point, Arnold is full of anxiety of receiving his math book because he see’s it as source of hope and knowledge, something not common where he lives. However, all good thing come to end, when He see’s something deeply devastating, “But my lips and I stopped short when I saw this written on the inside of the front cover: This Book Belongs To Agnes Adams...Agnes Adams is my mother. MY MOTHER!” (31), Arnold’s follows this sad revelation by venting how he feels, “My school and tribe are so poor and sad that we have to study from the same dang books our parents studied from. That is absolutely the saddest thing in the world” (31). Arnold is completely heart broken by this that he feels like the “world has declared nuclear war” (31) on his hopes and dreams of trying to learn and be happy. By seeing how much of a heavy burden the reservation is, it pushed Arnold by making him throw his book in shame, disgust and anger that it ended up hitting Mr. P.
After the incident with the book being thrown, Arnold is confronted by Mr. P, which leads into a life-changing conversation between the two. As the two converse, Mr. P lets Arnold know that, despite what happened between the two, he still holds him in high regards, “And you’re a bright and shining star, too...’You’re the smartest kid in the school. And I don’t want you to fade away. You deserve better” (40), Mr. P praises Arnold on his intellect and being something too precious to go to waste. Although a reluctant Arnold refuses to believe that and the fact that he deserve to shine, he soon shines up to the idea once Mr. P starts giving him more compelling evidence, “You’ve been fighting since you were born’, ‘You fought off that brain surgery. You fought off those seizures. You fought off all the drunks and drug addicts. You kept your hope. And now, you have to take your hope and go somewhere where other people have hope” (43). It is with that Arnold soon understands what his instructor was trying to convey to him,which was he had to add his hope to the hope of another individual if he wanted to reach goal that wouldn’t be possible if he stayed in current location, which comes to the final choice of Arnold deciding to leave the reservation.
Once Arnold arrived at his new school ,Reardan High School, he was confronted with complete alienation from his new classmates, as states what he witnessed, “They stared at me, the Indian boy..they stared at me like I was Bigfoot or UFO” (56) Arnold comes face to face with the issue that he will be facing while at Reardan which will be complete adversity from his white classmates and the new customs he will have to get used to. This will come into clearer sense when he is “fights” Roger,“So I punched Roger in the face…I struck some fake karate pose because I figured Roger’s gang was going to attack me for bloodying their leader. But they just stared at me” (65) Arnold is confronted with a whole new behavior of defending one’s self when he punches Roger, as he expects the rest to join but when they refuse to, they leave Arnold puzzled, which leads him to see what Roger does, “You meet me after school right here, ‘ I said. ‘Why’ He asked. I couldn‘t believe he was so stupid…He got to his feet and walked away... I was absolutely confused”(65). It is after this incident that Arnold starts to he is confused by the sudden rules of confrontation, he doesn’t go into a crazed confused state of mind, he merely addresses that this new environment makes him feel like a “freaky alien” where he had no way of getting back home, back to where everything made sense to him. As a result, now Arnold must endure this new school year at his new school and must painfully get accustom to the new ways while still retaining his Indian heritage.
Despite the altercations that Arnold has been having at his new school, he did witness some traits that resembled something about his home or his heritage. After the death of Eugene, his and his dad’s best friend, Arnold returns to school, only to be mocked by his teacher with has an interesting result, ‘If I’d been stronger, I would have stood up to her. I would have called her names..But I was too broken. Instead, it was Gordy who defended me. He stood with his textbook and dropped it” (175). Astonished by what Gordy, Arnold can’t help but look in awe as how his friend looks, “He looked so strong. He looked like a warrior. He was protecting me like Rowdy used to protect me” (175), then he is more surprised by what his other classmates did, “Penelope stood and dropped her textbook...And the Roger stood and dropped his textbook...The the other basketball players did the same” (175). It was with this act of defiance and compassion that Arnold comes to a realization, “I used to think the world was broken down by tribes’...‘ By black and white. By Indian and white But I know that isn’t true. The world is only broken into two tribes: The people who are assholes and the people who are not” (176), Arnold addresses this to his teacher because he realized that because by seeing what his classmates did, that he wasn't an outsider, that his classmates weren't going to treat any different because they cared about him which made him feel like he was part of tribe with them. This signified that Arnold still holds his heritage strong because he doesn't call it two groups or family but two tribes, which implies that Arnold was not lost to his way, he was experienced kindness in an place where he didn't expect it.
Towards the end of the school year, Arnold reflects on the events that have occurred since he started at Reardan, such as the death of Eugene, his Grandmother, his sister Mary,and contemplates on what he what he has left to call his own tribe since his original shunned him for leaving the reservation. It the comes to him that he really isn't alone, “I realize that, sure I was a Spokane Indian..But I also belonged to the tribe of American immigrants. And to the tribe of basketball players. And to the Tribe of bookworms...And to the tribe of poverty. And to the tribe of funeral goers. And to the tribe beloved sons” (217), as he addresses all the tribes that he belongs too, he soon realizes that he still is who he is when he left, it’s just that he came back being part of something bigger, something more meaningful and important to him. Arnold would then be reassured of his Indian heritage by his friend Rowdy, “You’re an old-time nomad,’ ‘You’re going to keep moving all over the world in search of food and water and grazing land. That’s pretty cool” (230). After Rowdy tells Arnold this, it implicates that he is calling Arnold a true and noble Indian, because of what true Indians did back years ago.
Arnold was confronted by the shame of his heritage, due to the economic troubles they had in the reservation, but once he was given the strength to move on in order to pursue a better education faced many trial ahead. Dealing with a whole new world of customs, Arnold was not sure he’d be able to keep sane while trying to achieve his goal while trying to stay true to himself. When faced with adversity and alienation, any individual may find it hard to fit, especially with background like Arnolds. It is because of the will power that he mustered up did he overcome those obstacles, find a new sense of pride of who he is and discover a whole new set of friends and values that he will cherish forever and address with himself.
