Adolescent Fiction: Junior's Journey

Sunday, March 25, 2012

Junior's Journey

The main character in The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian is a freshman boy named, Junior. Throughout the book, I feel as if I am part of the character because I got to know him from all the situations he went through. We got to know him on a personal level. Junior loves to draw. He even stated, “I feel important with a pen in my hand. I feel like I might grow up to be somebody important” (7). We learn he draws to try to escape from the reservation. The drawings throughout the book help us get inside of Junior’s brain and understand what he is thinking. It gives us a deeper understanding of what he feels. I enjoy reading the drawings; I feel connected to him. Junior is from a poverty family which lives in a poor Spokane Indian Reservation; he sometimes does not get meals which mean sleeping is a meal.

Junior’s life compared to my life growing up is completely different. Compared to him, I am truly blessed and take for granted the things I am given. In my family, putting food on the table is not a problem. I could not imagine not having food to eat for eighteen and a half hours. Also, it didn’t truly hit me until I was trying to think of differences in our lives. When he has to walk 22 miles to get to school, I drive and my house is not even a mile away from our high school. I also had a car since my freshman year to drive to school. I feel selfish for driving a mile to school when he has to walk that or hitchhike to school.

A theme I seem to see throughout the story which Junior helps form is the point of trying to find yourself. Junior is trying to find his true identity. He leaves the Rez to help better his future; he knows he cannot succeed if he stays at the rez. Junior asked his parents, “Who has the most hope?” Junior and his parents answered with “white people” at the same time (45). He wanted to transfer schools because they had a better education program and athletic teams. They were the best; therefore, they would allow him to achieve the most. Mr. P gives Junior the realization that all his friends and families have given up. Junior knows he cannot give up and end up like the rest of the Rez because he has fight in him since he was born and wants to achieve in life. Junior also joined the basketball team; however, only a certain amount of kids made the varsity. We saw Junior give it his all and fight to not give up when going against Roger. On page 140 Junior stated “I knew if I took that break I would never make the team” showed us he find the fight in him to prove to everyone that he was good enough for the varsity. He was a warrior. Junior realized he left in search for a dream of a better life. On page 217, Junior states all the tribes he belongs to such as the: Spokane Indian tribe, basketball players, bookworms, American immigrants, and the list goes on. He realized he was going to be okay. He found himself in the journey he took for a better life.

1 comment:

JenApril 3, 2012 at 8:08 PM
I love that you bring up all of the tribes into which Junior places himself. It's a great point. Henry Louis Gates calls this double-voicedness: the desire to identify with both the privileged and the Othered culture.
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Post #9 Shakespeare Bats Cleanup (due MONDAY, 4/30 by class time)

Shakespeare Bats Cleanup explores a number of themes, among them grief, identity, coming of age (Bildungsroman), friendship, love, and others. Kevin, our adolescent narrator, shares his story with us as a poetic narrative which includes poems written in conventional forms and free-form poems. Choose one theme which the book develops, and show its development through the text. As you do so, be sure to consider and articulate how the book's structure (as poems) affects whatever theme you discuss.

Post #7 Warriors Don't Cry (due Sunday 4/15 by 8 pm)

Choices for responses:

1. The title of this text refers to warriors. How are the characters warriors? Are you comfortable with that depiction? Why or why not? Be sure to offer specific description as you explore characterization.

2. While it could certainly be argued that the author of our last novel does place himself in the text, that book is fiction. This text is not; rather, it's a memoir. How does knowing that the book is non-fiction shape your reading of it? Does it cause you to respond differently? If so, how? If not, why not? Consider characters, events, and the historical context carefully as you respond.

Post #6 The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian (due Sunday, 3/25 by 8 pm)

Post #5 Annie on My Mind (part 2) due Sun 3/11 by 8 pm

You have several different options for your response:

1. How is social transgression framed and treated in the novel? Do you as a reader find that the characters are affirmed or punished for stepping outside of social conventions?

2. We've talked a bit about parallel spaces in texts, spaces in which characters encounter very different experiences. After reading this novel, can we argue that those parallel spaces never intersect? What function might those separate (or not so separate) spaces serve?

3. The story is written in the epistolary (letter writing) tradition. How does that framing affect your reading? Your interaction with characters? Your response?

Post #3 Due by Monday's class (2/20)

For this post, you have three options:

1. Respond to some theme you identify in the novel. Be sure that you make a claim and support it using specific examples from the book.

2. Apply the article's claims to the novel. Be sure that you make a claim and support it using specific examples from the article and the book.

3. Examine the novel as science fiction. How is it both utopic and dystopic in its function? What might it be warning us as a society against? Be sure that you make a claim and support it using specific examples from the text.

Post #1 Due by Thursday's class (1/26)

Ellen Raskin's novel The Westing Game is a detective novel, yes, but we can tease out many themes as we examine the text. A few we introduced and explored briefly in class today:

the Cinderella effect

the roles of women

identity construction

gaming and strategy

trust (as it relates to other themes or on its own)

oppressive/repressive (think Trites) parents

Choose from a theme on this list or choose a theme you've noted in the text, and write about the way the theme is introduced and developed through the novel. As you show how the theme works throughout the book, be sure to offer specific examples to support your ideas.