Isis Garcia

Instructor Guzman

English 9A

22, November 2019

Alcoholism on a Navajo Reservation

In Sherman Alexie’s The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, Arnold is a

teenage boy who lives in a Navajo reservation, he has dealt with many traumatic events. Arnold

has encountered losing loved ones due to their extensive use of alcohol. The novel informs the

reader that intergenerational trauma reoccurs in the novel, causing alcoholism to be a prominent

theme in the novel. In the novel, it shows us that the use of alcohol cannot only affect the person

who consumes it, but the people around them that witness their actions. These actions are shown

in the novel, such as others losing their own or their loved one’s lives, causing many tragic

deaths to occur in the novel.

The first death that had taken place in the novel was Arnold's grandmother. In the novel,

we see Grandmother Spirit as a considerate, loving and caring person. But, in the novel the

reader is informed of a tragic event that occurred to her. On page 158, Arnold informs the reader

about how Grandmother Spirit had passed away and how he had viewed the situation, it writes

“Grandparents are supposed to die first, but they’re supposed to die of old age. They’re supposed

to die of a heart attack or stroke or of cancer or Alzheimer's. THEY ARE NOT SUPPOSED TO

GET RUN OVER AND KILLED BY A DRUNK DRIVER! I mean, the thing is, plenty of

Indians have died because they were drunk. And plenty of drunken Indians have killed other

drunken Indians” In this quote it is informing us how Indians are killed by other Indains by the
use of alcohol. Also the quote points out, how alcohol seems to be a cause in many deaths just

like Grandmother Spirit’s death. This event shows us how just drinking alcohol causes a negative

impact on not just the loss of losing Grandmother Spirit but, causes a recurrence of losing others

by alcoholism or the reoccurrence of a bad events caused by alcohol.

The second death that had occurred in the novel was another Navajo living on the

reservation, Eugene. We are told that Eugene was shot at a parking lot of a 7-Eleven. Arnold

further explains the cause of his death on page 169, it writes “My dad’s best friend Eugene, was

shot in the face in the parking lot of a 7-Eleven in Spokane. Way drunk, Eugene was shot and

killed by one of his good friends, Bobby, who was too drunk to even remember pulling the

trigger. The police think Eugene and Bobby fought over the last drink in a bottle of wine.” This

quote connects with the topic of alcoholism. The negative acts of Eugene and Bobby drinking

have caused Eugene to die due to their extensive drinking. If they had not been drinking, another

loved one would not have passed away to the same recurrence of losing a loved one to alcohol.

Yet these recurrences don’t stop here. Alcoholism continues once again in the novel.

The third tragic death that occurred later on in the novel, is Mary, she is Arnold’s older

sister. Her death was caused by extensivedrinking of alcohol and not being able to wake up in

time to possibly save her own life. This death was explained by Arnold’s father, due to the fact at

this time Arnold did not know what caused his sister’s death. On page 205 it writes, “They had a

big party-,” my father said. OF COURSE THEY HAD A BIG PARTY! OF COURSE THEY

WERE DRUNK! THEY’RE INDIANS! “They had a big party,” my father said. “And your sister

and her husband passed out in the back bedroom. And somebody tried to cook some soup on a

hot plate. And they forgot about it and left. And a curtain drifted in on the wind and caught on
the hot plate, and the trailer burned down quick,” I swear to you I heard my sister screaming.

“The police say your sister never woke up,” my father said “She was way too drunk.” This quote

has the same recurrence of having alcohol involved in the characters deaths. This quote had also

informed the reader of how Arnold had expected to hear the fact that they were drinking and

partying because ‘they’re Indians’, it shows us more of how in his home at the reservation all or

most Indians drink. Arnold makes his claim sound like a fact, that anyone should know that

Navajos who live at his reservation drink alcohol, just as how Eugene and Mary drank towards

their own death.

In this novel alcoholism is a prominent theme. Alcoholism is an example of how

intergenerational trauma repeats itself throughout the novel. We see how alcohol is involved in

each character’s deaths and how the pattern of these deaths keep recurring. The use of alcohol

cannot only affect the ones drinking but the people around them who view their actions and

choices. When he witnessed other people’s behaviors, Arnold promised not to drink alcohol,

which resolved the acts of intergenerational trauma.