The Absolutely True Diary Of A Part Time Indian Essay

534 Words3 Pages
In “The Absolutely True Diary Of A Part-Time Indian” by Sherman Alexie, Junior’s cartoons show the impact that racism has on him and his family. They show that White people have hope and Indians don’t. When Junior’s dog Oscar was dying, he was talking about how it sucks to be poor and why his family was poor. When talking about this he drew a cartoon that says “Who my parents would have been if somebody had payed attention to their dreams.” (The Absolutely True Diary Of A Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie, page 12) This is saying that if his parents weren't indian they would be successful in life, but since they are indian, they never got a chance because of racism. This cartoon supports my claim because it shows how racism impacts indians in a negative way.…show more content…
It shows that because of this him and his family can’t have hope, but white people can. Also when Junior is heading into Rearden for the first time he is talking about how hope looks like a mythical creature and he draws a picture of a pegasus in clouds with the caption “white, white, white, white, white, white, white, white.” (Page 51) By drawing this he is saying that hope is mythical and magical and almost everything that is mythical or magical is white, hence he suggests that hope is also white. This cartoon supports my claim because it shows that all whites have hope. This impacts Junior because if everything that represents hope is white, then since he is not white and he is indian he has no hope for his future because of his race. When Junior headed to Rearden for the first time he was an outcast, not only because of his lisp, stutter, and other disabilities (as noted at beginning of book), but he also was the only Indian. At this time he draws a cartoon of him compared to the other
Open Document