Addison Dubbels

Dr. McCracken
EDU 265
22 April 2015
Critical Essay: Sherman Alexies
The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian
Too many adults think their kids' lives are simple, or they try to make their lives simple,
when their emotional lives are just as complicated as ours. They might have a few less tools to
deal with it but the emotions are all the same, and the subject matter is all the same. Sherman
Alexie (the man behind the insightful quotation) has often received criticism for his writing for a
young adult audience. Having always been someone to stretch limits and push boundaries,
however, Alexie cares little for his criticism. Instead, he steps into the young adult genre and
creates pieces like The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indianpieces that create
controversy, pieces that are sometimes raunchy, but pieces that are ultimately raw and honest.
Alexie, recognizing the equally complicated lives of young adults and the issues they face,
denies the stigma that young adult literature is dumbed down, shallow, or lacking in development
or insight. Instead, he takes a bold approach in crafting captivating narratives that evoke both
laughter and heartache. Though Sherman Alexies novel The Absolutely True Diary of a PartTime Indian has been banned and criticized for censorship issues, the multicultural novel offers
perceptions to a multitude of authentic issues: race relations, bullying/violence, alcoholism,
death, family, friendship, self-discovery, and finally, the ability for a person to reconcile where he
has been with where he wants to go.
Fourteen-year-old Arnold Spirit, or Junior, has grown up on a Spokane Indian

Reservation, where most of its members are connected one way or another to poverty or death.
Born with cerebral spinal fluid in his skull and having experienced a variety of other medical
issues, Junior has developed differently than most other young men and woman on his
reservation. He is constantly mocked and beat up, and his only reservation friend is Rowdy, a
chronically angry young man who suffers physical abuse from his father. Although Rowdy is
missing the flight component of the fight or flight response, he is a loyal and committed to
Junior, protecting and fighting for him continually. When the teacher at Juniors reservation
school tells him he must leave the reservation in order to receive a better education and become
someone, Junior chooses to attend an all-white school in a neighboring community. His parents
do not always have enough money or gas to drive him to school, and he sometimes has to make
the twenty-two mile trek on foot. He is soon considered a traitor to those on the reservation. His
friendship with Rowdy is unstable at best.
Despite all these circumstances, Junior is determined to become more than a reservation
stereotype. Eventually, Junior comes to be respected at his new school, both with his intelligence
and his ability to play basketball. Despite his eventual acceptance, Junior struggles with
balancing his white life with his reservation life as he suffers several tragedies and cannot
escape his impoverished culture and alcohol-drowned community. By the end of the novel,
however, Junior is able to embrace the good and recognize the dark aspects of both white and
Native American culture. By the end of the novel, Junior realizes he can fly without forgetting
the people who gave him wings. He is wiling to embrace the opportunities available to him, to
become more than a label, while still clinging to the culture and the people who have made him
who he is.
Alexies novel is a novel of self-discovery as so many young adult novels are. Yet despite

its encompassing a theme so common within the genre, The Absolutely True Diary stretches
readers understanding of young adult literature. Alexie provides his audience with a real and
vulnerable account of both tragedies and redeeming qualities of Native American culture. He
does not shy away from the heartbreaking, nor does he totally neglect the positive. He expounds
stereotypes, but he does so in a way that uses them to identify real issues without perpetuating
stigmatic labels. His language and content are sometimes explicit, but they are liberating, raw,
and honest.
So what does this mean for young adult literature? When reading, all people desire to see
themselves represented somewhere within literature. African American writers became weary
with the lack of honest representation of their experiences, and movements like the Harlem
Renaissance followed the unrest. Asian Americans, Mexican Americans, feministswriters from
all cultures and backgrounds have taken on the challenge of creating a space within the literary
cannon, a space dedicated to more than a metanarrative for all people. In the same way, Sherman
Alexie is giving proper attention to not only Native Americans, but to young adults. His themes
on race relations, alcoholism, forming an identity despite competing influences, and the other
previous stated thematic tendencies are created within a Native American setting, but really, what
he does through his novels is give voice and validation to not only these Native American young
adults, but to all young adults. The lives of young adults are not as clean and even childish as
society often believes. He is criticism for his explicit style, but some young people are living
explicit lives. Young adults are facing adult issues as well, and Alexie makes room within
literature for these authentic issues.
Novels like Sherman Alexies The Absolute True Diary of a Part-Time Indian are
necessary in providing students (and even adults) transformative education. Through works like

Alexies, readers are forced to step outside their own knowledge and construe meaning based on
the presented text, a multicultural text. The audience is forced to take a stance of humility as it
learns about experiences that may differ from their own. From there, readers can validate
meaning through linking the text with their own experience or looking into the content presented,
such as considering violence, poverty, or alcohol abuse on reservations or what it means to find
ones whole self in the midst of ones past and (desired) future. It may change the way readers
think about bullying or stereotypes and cause readers to critically reflect on what the text means
to them, to a particular culture, or to society. Books that take no risks, that offer insights, that
challenge their readersthese books are dangerous in the best of ways, and they are the books
young adults should be exposed to. They may validate struggles while challenging them to think
critically about what the text means for them and for others, and they may be the key to offering
transformative education. The Absolutely True Diary of a Part Time Indian is funny, beautiful,
and redemptive. But it is also ugly, real, and thought provoking. And that is why it is good.