illustration of main character, Junior, holding a basketball and looking over his shoulder

The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian

by Sherman Alexie

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Relationship Dynamics in The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian

Summary:

In The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, Junior's relationship with his father is depicted as supportive yet strained by his father's alcoholism, which stems from the hardships of reservation life. Despite this, his father encourages Junior's decision to attend a better school. Junior's friendship with Rowdy is complex; Rowdy's aggression is due to his abusive home life, but he protects Junior from bullies. Their bond, tested by Junior's school transfer, reflects shared interests and mutual respect.

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How is Junior's relationship with his father portrayed in The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-time Indian?

Junior and his father have a generally good relationship. Junior's father is supportive of most of Junior's activities and does what he can to help him with the transition to his new school. This support is essential to Junior's decision to take a risk and transfer out of the reservation school. Junior also has a high opinion of his fathers abilities and intelligence, showing in his artwork that he believes his father would have been a very successful musician if he did not live on the reservation.

Junior is very aware of the limitations that the poverty of the reservation placed on his father and understands that these limitations are partly responsible for the alcoholism his father suffers from. While Junior is unhappy about his father's alcoholism and worries for him, they do have a good relationship.

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How is Junior's relationship with his father portrayed in The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-time Indian?

In The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-time Indian, Junior and his father have a strong relationship, although Junior worries about his father's battle with alcohol.  Junior recognizes that his parents are not living the lives they had dreamed, and in an early chapter, Junior draws a picture of who his parents would have been if they had been able to follow their dreams.  Junior's father would have become a musician.  However, the hardships on the reservation have created a different path for Junior's parents, and his father resorts to alcohol abuse to cope with the difficulties he faces such as lack of opportunity and low income.  When Junior goes to Reardan, he often worries that his father will get drunk and forget to come pick him up from school (and sometimes he does forget).  Yet despite Junior's concern over his father's alcoholism, Junior and his father remain close mainly because his father supports him and his efforts.  When Junior announces that he wants to go to Reardan for a better education, his father is happy that Junior wants to take this risky step, knowing that many Indians on the reservation will brand him a traitor for leaving the school at Wellpinit.  Junior's father makes the commitment of driving him the 20+ miles to and from school when he is able.  So through this sense of understanding, Junior and his father are able to maintain a strong relationship.

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In The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, why is Rowdy so aggressive and why are he and Junior good friends?

Rowdy is aggressive because of his home life. His father is a heavy drinker and gets violent when he drinks, leading both Rowdy and his mother to show signs of physical abuse. This has led Rowdy to lash out in anger at others. For the most part this anger is not expressed against Junior until he leaves the reservation. Rowdy and Junior are best friends, leading Rowdy to lash out at those that threaten or hurt Junior rather than at Junior himself. It is unclear how Rowdy and Junior became friends, but they appear to remain friends because of shared interests and because Rowdy sees something in Junior. What he sees is unclear, but he does think Junior is special.

Mr. P's explanation of life on the reservation is accurate in the sense that education of Native Americans did focus on the destruction of Native American culture for a long time. This education did not, however, serve to integrate Native Americans into a broader culture and the use of reservations kept Native Americans as a separate people. Without economic investment that creates opportunities to avoid poverty, or opportunities to obtain purpose and food through some other manner, those that live on the reservation have little to look forward too. This can create a situation of learned helplessness that makes people essentially give up even when opportunities for escape exist.

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In The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, why is Rowdy so aggressive and why are he and Junior good friends?

The answer to the first of these questions can be found when Junior has his life-changing conversation with Mr P, his maths teacher. When he opens up and talks about the bullying he is experiencing, Junior talks about his friendship with Rowdy and how Rowdy protects him from being bullied. However, what Mr P tells Junior is that the reason why Rowdy is so violent himself is because he is beaten by his father at home. Junior's response shows that he clearly knows this and thus Mr P's explanation is supported. Note what Junior tells the reader:

Whenever he came to school with a black eye, Rowdy made sure to give black eyes to two kids picked at random.

Rowdy is therefore shown to be a violent child, who takes the violence he receives from his father at home and allows that to transform him at school into a vindictive boy. Mr P feels that Rowdy as a character is only going to become "meaner and meaner" as he grows up. He uses this as part of his explanation why he feels Junior has to leave the reservation to avoid becoming like Rowdy and all the other Indians who have "given up" and are "defeated." It is interesting that Junior himself is unsure why he and Rowdy have become such good friends, but perhaps, given what Mr P tells Junior, it is possible to argue that Rowdy, just like Mr P, identifies in Junior something special that makes him feel protective towards him and gives him the desire to look out for him.

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What roles do Rowdy and Junior play in each other's lives in The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian?

The changing relationship between Rowdy and Junior (Arnold) is one of the main threads that runs through Sherman Alexie’s novel. They feel as close as brothers because they share a birthday. Junior is bookish and had to overcome some congenital disabilities, while Rowdy is stronger and more into sports. Rowdy often defended Junior from bullies. In turn, Junior appreciates Rowdy and sees beneath the surface; he is one of the few people who values Rowdy’s intelligence and perception.

Their friendship is sorely tested when Junior decides to attend school off the reservation and begins to play basketball. Although Rowdy’s negative view of his decision to change schools is hard for Junior to take, it can be seen as something he does for his friend, in the sense of insisting that he remember where he comes from and that he not completely assimilate to middle-class, white lifestyles. This awareness extends to his analysis of his sister’s death, for which Rowdy blamed him.

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