Tucker's English 1 blog

Grief is something everyone in the reservation has dealt with at least twice before the time they can drive. They grieve when they have lost another member of their family. They lose most members of their family due to alcohol. The people are so used to dealing with grief that it seems to show way differently with them than it does with people not as accustomed to death. To these people grief is something else,  “Grief is when you feel so helpless and stupid that you think nothing will ever be right again, and your macaroni and cheese tastes like sawdust, and you can't even jerk off because it seems like too much trouble.”-Sherman Alexie, Absolutely True Diary of a Part Time Indian.  Arnold feels that he has to experience so much grief in his life and it makes him feel completely helpless.  Nothing feels the same to him when he is grieving and it is something he has to deal with multiple times during the book. Grief is a problem Alexie shows has much precedence in the Spokane  re

A huge and reoccurring problem in the book is poverty. Arnold Spirit is the son of poor parents as his parents were before him. Just as everyone else on the reservation is. They can barely afford to provide breakfast. No one leaves the reservation because nobody has enough money to be able to thrive anywhere else in the world. Everybody wants to leave but they can't. This makes them so sad and they spend the little money they have left on alcohol. Arnold thinks that poverty is an inescapable disease that plagues the reservation.  “Poverty doesn’t give you strength or teach you lessons about perseverance. No, poverty only teaches you how to be poor.”   ―  Sherman Alexie ,  The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian . He thinks that poverty only helps you to be poor and that's all that ends up happening to you when you grow up. Everyone on the reservation realizes that they are going to be poor when they are older too and they think there is no way to escape. 

Race was a prominent issue for Arnold for a little of the book but overall it didn't seem to be a huge issue throughout the book. Arnold's first few days at Reardan were not the most fun for him and he was constantly made fun of for his race. He felt like an outsider just because he was not white and it made him feel like he could not fit in with them. He slowly started to make more friends and Reardan and his whole outlook on life began to change. He began to think that maybe he could fit in.  “I used to think the world was broken down by tribes,' I said. 'By Black and White. By Indian and White. But I know this isn't true. The world is only broken into two tribes: the people who are assholes and the people who are not.”- Sherman Alexie. He realized that it was not his race that defines him and that it's who he chooses to be that truly does define him. The author shows that race did not determine Arnold's life and it shouldn't determine anyone  elses

One of the most prominent issues in Absolutely True Diary of a Part Time Indian is addiction. Arnold's dad is the biggest example of this in the book along with his friend Eugene. There was a time on Christmas when his dad gave him a five dollar bill after being drunk for a week. "Man, that thing smelled like booze and fear and failure"(151). This came after his dad had come home from being drunk for a week. This is a common occurrence in this family and other families as Arnold describes being a common problem among Indians. This problem sometimes even causes death. The dad's best friend Eugene was shot in the face by his friend when they were drunk. They were fighting over the last drink when he was shot in the face. Arnold's grandmother is run over by a drunk driver and his sister burns to death while she is too drunk to even know she is dying. Almost all of the tragedies in Arnold's life is due to addiction. This idea has shaped the book.

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