Caleb Speasl

English - Caleb K
932 Words
3/10/21
Rough draft - Final project

Hopes and dreams in the time of struggle - the hopes and dreams of a reservation
kid growing up in a pale world.

In the book, Absolute Diary of A Part-time Indian by Sherman Alexie, there can be multiple ways
where the characters face and deal with different things. Like their hopes and dreams, goals in
life, as well as people that can get in the way of various characters’ hopes for themselves.

There are multiple reasons that people of different nationalities allow their dreams crushed by
other races. Take the conflict between Arnold and Earl, who is Penelope’s dad and heavily
disagrees with his daughter’s choice of friends. In the book, he quotes liberally “if you get my
daughter pregnant, if she has any of your charcoal babies I will disown her.”(109) As well as a
considerable number of racist comments to Arnold. Other things that keep Arnold from
achieving his lifelong dreams and goals is the reservation, meaning that racism on the reservation
and at Reardon is a factor in Arnold wanting to succeed more completely because most people
solely think of him as a kid that isn’t going to amount up to much. This is why he starts going to
the high school in Reardon, despite the negative effects from kids at the school as well as kids at
home including Rowdy, who takes his anger out that his best friend is leaving by punching him.
In addition, you can undoubtedly play in Mary, who started writing romance novels in high
school but was never finished the book because she wouldn’t be capable to publish it who ends
up making her depressed and dormant till she sees Arnold follow his dreams which ends up with
Mary moving to Montana to experience the life that she wanted.

Having to improve schools is one of the ways that Alexie shows that you have to leave your
comfort zone in order to achieve your dreams. At the beginning of the book, Arnold’s primary
goal was naturally to retain a stable relationship with Rowdy as well as figuring out how to make
money as a 14-year-old, but after trying to achieve exactly this he realized that the sole way that
he could get out and conquer his goals was to change schools after he was seeing the graduates
from a few years ago still living on the reservation and following down the path towards dying
younger than most of his family. This thought led to him willingly making the 22-mile trek to
Reardon every day no matter what transportation issues came with it. Arnold additionally had to
properly deal with racist teachers like Mrs. Jermany when she was surprised Arnold was "finally
here.” This led to his small group of friends stood up for him by throwing their books on the
ground than walking out of the classroom, this led to Arnold employing “I used to think that the
world was broken down by tribes,” I said. “By black and white. By Indians and white. But I
know that isn’t realistic. The world is merely divided into two tribes: The people who are
arseholes and the people who are not.”(176) which shows that Arnold has developed an
alternative view on race and adversity by learning that its not the color of you skin that counts,
its who you are as a person that does. Arnold also had to figure out how to deal with racist
classmates. His first day of school he ends up throwing a punch because a white student, Roger
(A senior, and one of Arnold friends) makes an extremely racist comment of “you are living
proof that …. Buffalo” which ends in Roger challenging Arnold to a fight that ends up never
happening. ^there are words in the quote that I cannot say in person so I am not going to say them in text

One of the other key things that affect how different people follow their dreams, which include
Mary and how she tried to follow her dreams without a defined plan on what she was going to do
and how to achieve what she desired. After Highschool she wanted to start writing romance
novels, but the conscious thought was quickly shut down because no one would ever publish it,
partly because it was drafted by a Native American (this is an example of implicit bias.) so she
started to become blue and depressed which is why Arnold allegedly gave her the nickname of
Basement Mary. This instantly started to change once she started to see what Arnold was doing
to get out and be able to have the ability to get ahead, but the difference was that Arnold had a
plan and a support network of a few close friends like Penelope, Gordy, as well as Roger and
others but Mary doesn’t maintain a plan, only to move to another reservation and approach a guy
that she merely likes on the reservation. This plan ends up working for Mary, but only till she
and her husband host a party and end up perishing in a trailer fire that was started by a person
intoxicated and trying to make soup and sets the burner on fire. This shows that you inevitably
have to produce a plan in order to achieve the hopes that you have for yourself, in this instance
Arnold delivered a plan and a support group but Mary only went on gut instinct which ended
tragically for her.

Ultimately, there really are multiple ways for the characters in this book to rise above the 3
primary things (Hopes and dreams, goals in life, as well as different people/things that can get in
the way of their ambitious goals), the main idea is how you face what you want to achieve with
your life and what kinds of plans that you make/have in order to achieve the goals in life that you
want and the future that you want for yourself and even your family.