Monday, April 19, 2010
The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian
"I'm fourteen years olds and I've been to 42 funerals," Junior says, "That's really the biggest difference between Indians and white people." in the community of Wellpinit, everyone is related, everyone is valued, everyone lives a hard life, everyone is at risk for early death, and the loss of one person is a loss for the community. Compare Wellpinit to Reardan, whose residents have access to social services, health care, and wealth and people are socially distracted from one another. How does Junior use this blunt, matter-of-fact statement to describe this vast gulf between an impoverished Indian community and a middle-class white town a few miles away?
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Junior uses that statement to make you think that that is a big difference. It is. He also says that because he thinks it is said, and shows you what alcohol does to someones life. I think that it is true that it is outrageous, and to think that the white people would not stop them from drinking.
ReplyDeleteHe uses that statement to tell you how hard Indian life is and how, as Atticus said, alcohol is damaging. He also said that the most funerals any student in Reardan had gone to was five,compared to his forty-two. Thats a massive difference. Junior also uses that statement to show how everyone knew each other on the reservation, where they didn't off of the reservation. He tells throughout the book of Indian poverty and then white's wealth. There is also one Funeral scene which tells a similar thing: when Ted mistakesthe powwow dress for Grandmother Spirit's, and all the Indians laugh.
ReplyDeleteOSCAR
Junior tells you that everyone is related to eachother because everyone is a large family. The community is so small that everyone knows eachother and everyone is really close and a big family. He's been to 42 funerals and he's 14. If one person dies they all mourn for that one person that one day because they are all so close. They care deeply for eachother and I feel even though Junior left the reservation he is still loved by everyone else. Rowdy always cared for Junior just didn't want to show it now since he was at the "white school" as Atti and Oscar said alcohol can change or even remove someones life. I think he shows the difference beetween the reservation and the whites by all his comparing and talking suchas the fact that everyone cried for him when his sister died because none of them have been in sustuations like that. Overall I thought it was a really good book!
ReplyDeleteJunior says this because I imagine its not the largesttown. Everyone is friends or everyone knows eachother. If someone dies everyone mourns and knows about it. Iagree with what everybody says.
ReplyDeleteJack