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Tyson Howes Kati Lewis Humanities 1100 October 16, 2013 Analysis Essay In The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie, Alexie shows the semi-autobiography of himself as a teenager named Arnold and his experiences of transferring off of a nearby Indian reservation and into the town or Reardan. This analysis will show how Alexie uses point of view and character development to show how the conflicts (othering, unhomliness, subaltern, structural violence, and binaries) affect the theme of a hybrid identity as a Native American Indian. First, Alexie uses a first person point of view to put us in the position as if we were in Arnold's head. We know what Arnold knows and we see what he sees. So the story is very personal. In the beginning of the story Arnold is getting dropped off at school by his father. One can already see the structural violence is set when Arnold's dad says "Just remember this.... Those white people aren't better than you." (Allen et. all, 498) This already shows that there is a structure in place that white people are supposedly better than Indians. If you were from the reservation like Arnold or were an Indian then you are already on the lowest rung on the ladder. By using first person point of view, you can see that because of the structural violence Arnold already believes and gives into the internal racism when he replies to his father's comment when he thinks to himself: "But he was so wrong. And he knew he was wrong. He was the loser Indian

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father of a loser Indian son living in a world built for winners." (Allen et. all, 499) This solidifies the knowledge that Arnold is insecure about himself and his culture as he believes white people are better than him and his culture and is internalizing racism. Continuing with his point of view he shows several examples of binaries like how Indians are poor/whites are more wealthy, Indians are losers with no future/whites will become successful, Indians are alcoholics/whites aren't, Indians are small/whites are bigger and stronger, Indians won't go to college/whites will, and Indians don't deserve an education or opportunity/whites do deserve education and opportunity, Indians are savage fighters/whites are more cultured. He gives examples as he speaks to others and as he thinks throughout this excerpt of each of these binaries. If you refer to image one in the works cited page you will see a prime example of how Arnold uses binaries on himself. He depicts the stereotypical white boy and Indian. The binaries are linked directly to the structural violence in Reardan as the Indians are set to believe they are less of human beings than the white people. Continuing with point of view even when an Indian tries for better opportunity they lose any sense of identity that they have because of this structural violence. Arnold shows the reader how he loses his sense of identity and replaces it with a sense of unhomliness when he talks about leaving the reservation. "Can you imagine what would have happened time if I'd turned around and gone back to the rez school? I would have been pummeled. Mutilated. Crucified." (Allen et. all, 498) So he is rejected now by his Indian culture and when he tries to assimilate with the people in Reardan he feels he is rejected there too. "They stared at me like I was Bigfoot or a UFO." (Allen et. all, 499) Through the first person point of view the reader can see that Arnold feels he has lost any sense of identity he has. By using the first person point of view we

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can see how structural violence has affected Arnold into believing the binaries set on Indians and the internal racism derived from those binaries. This directly is result of Arnold's hybrid identity. Second, Alexie uses character development to introduce Arnold to the reader as a boy who is leaving his home to find better opportunity. He leaves because he finds his mom's name on one of his textbooks in school, which shows that the reservation schools haven't updated their books since even before his mother was in school and the school's education system wasn't progressing. Arnold and his father knows in order for him to have a better opportunity he must leave the reservation and go to Reardan for school. "Parents would want to transmit to their children an identity that is similar to their own; however, they may refrain from doing so if this harms the childs labor market outcomes." (Teresa et. all, pg. 17) What this is suggesting is that Arnold's dad is ok with Arnold leaving the reservation because he will be finding a new identity separate from on the reservation, and he may have better opportunity by doing so. But by leaving Arnold knows that he will lose his acceptance and identity at the reservation, and will be entering an environment where the Indians are supposedly subaltern to white people. This is shown again when Arnold is getting dropped off by his father and is told to remember that the white people aren't better than him. We see Arnold as he arrives at Reardan feeling out of place and already wanting to leave due to his sense of unhomliness. Arnold works up the courage to go inside the school and goes to the front office, talks to the secretary, and goes to his first class. Inside his beliefs that he has no identity are confirmed when he walks in and everyone stares at him like bigfoot or a UFO. When he sits down the white girl next to him who he finds very pretty laughs at him when he says his name is Jr. The name is so odd to Penelope, yet for Arnold it is very common. His identity then takes another blow when the students all laugh when the teacher calls his name out Arnold Spirit. While in school Arnold continues to be othered through

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name calling, teasing, and racist jokes. Arnold is othered throughout the next few days of school "So they mostly called me names" and shows this in picture two of the works cited page. Eventually Arnold tells about the "rules" he learned at the reservation. He tells about how he must fight at any insult to him, his family, or friends. When one of the white boys named Roger comes and tells Arnold a racist joke towards Indians Arnold punches the boy in the face. This shows that Arnold's character hasn't developed past how he was on the reservation because he is still fighting like he did on the reservation. Interestingly enough Roger looks at Arnold disgusted as if he was wronged not Arnold. He calls Arnold an animal and begins to walk off. Arnold asks: "What are the rules?" and after Roger replies "what rules?" Arnold feels like "somebody had shoved me into a rocket ship and blasted me to a new planet. (Allen et. all, 504) I was a freaky alien and there was absolutely no way to get home." This last sentence shows a few things. One, Arnold hadn't developed nor adapted from his life on the reservation. Second, "It is apparent, for example, that stereotyping Native Americans as savages, or criminalizing their rituals, or excluding them from citizenship have served to maintain their stigmatized outsider identity". (Barbara , pg. 14) Roger is maintaining Arnold's outsider identity by calling him an animal. This ends up hurting Arnold's identity because secondly after hitting Roger he felt even more unhomliness. He feels more unhomliness because he again is rejected from Reardan's culture because of his way of solving problems with other people his age. This could have a huge effect on Arnold's ability to bond with others his age "boys with higher ethnic identity reported greater school bonding than boys with lower ethnic identity." (Dotterer et. all, pg. 10) Through his character development Arnold is shown to leave his reservation with an idea that he is subaltern and in meeting the prejudice at Reardan is confirmed of that idea because of the

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structural violence set in place. In turn as his story and character develop the reader is shown how there is conflict in Arnold's hybrid identity. In conclusion, Alexie uses point of view and character development to show us how Arnold's experience of moving from his reservation to Reardan. He moves to Reardan in search for better opportunity, but he comes with the preconception that Indians are subaltern to white people. Arnold's preconceptions are proved to him to be correct through students othering him and is seen with his first person point of view and his character development. Alexie uses these different elements to show the conflicts with Arnold's hybrid identity as a Native American Indian.

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Works Cited

Alexie, Sherman, and Ellen Forney. The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-time Indian. New York: Little, Brown, 2007. Print. Allen, Paul, and Jennifer Bauman. It Begins with Our Questions A Thematic Introduction to the Humanitites. 2nd ed. Vol. 1. N.p.: n.p., 2012. Print. Casey, Teresa, and Christian Dustmann. "Immigrants Identity, Economic Outcomes And The Transmission Of Identity Across Generations." Economic Journal 120.542 (2010): F31F51. Business Source Premier. Web. 13 Oct. 2013. Dotterer, Aryn M., Susan M. McHale, and Ann C. Crouter. "Sociocultural Factors And School Engagement Among African American Youth: The Roles Of Racial Discrimination, Ethnic Identity." Applied Developmental Science 13.2 Web. 13 Oct. 2013.

Racial Socialization, And

(2009): 61-73. Business Source Premier.

Perry, Barbara. "'There's Just Places Ya' Don't Wanna Go': The Segregating Impact Of Hate Crime Against Native Americans." Contemporary Justice Review 12.4 (2009): 13 Oct. 2013.

401-418. Legal Collection. Web.

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Images are from The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian. Image 1:

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Image 2: