The Absolutely True Diary of a Part Time Indian

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A ton of themes are brought up through out the book, one of these are identity, Arnold is always developing and evolving his identity. The way he adapts his identity to his surroundings are fascinating, because it paints a picture of the intelligence and the ability Arnold have to fit in. Arnold goes from zero to hero, in the reservation, he finds himself being an outcast, but after the transfer to Reardan he turns into this popular star. He explains the way he has to identities after the transfer, one at Reardan, and one at the reservation. How is Arnold able to cape with the double identity, well he is a kind of nomad, as Rowdy makes him aware of in the ending of the book. As he sees himself in this kind of way, he is able to resolve the personality split crisis.

Another critical theme in this book is race, the book highlights a huge problem, that still exist even in a modern society like ours. All of the Indians living in the reservation, are living in poverty. The most people in the reservation die because of alcohol, and we do experience that ourselves, as Arnolds sister, grandma and his fathers best friend all dies with alcohol involved. The transfer Arnold goes through from the reservation to Reardan is not appreciated by the other Indians, which shows how divided the Indians are from the white people.

One of the most devastating themes is poverty, it’s a story about a whole community that have been destroyed by poverty, and have replaced the hope they lack with the amounts of alcohol they drink. In the start we get to see how awful poverty is, as Arnolds father is forced to shoot and kill their dog Oscar, Arnolds best friend, because they are unable to pay the vet bill. Oscar is completely innocent and the death of an animal becomes a symbol for the senseless destruction that the poverty is causing.

The message is that no matter how poor you are, and how damaged you are both physically and mentally, it is possible to achieve success, even in another community, filled with people much richer than you. With hope and dreams Arnold is able to achieve success in life, even though the gods are against him.

I have chosen to compare this text to one of the short stories from “The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven” also written by Sherman Alexie. The short story is about a narrator who is also a native American, and how the society isn’t accepting the natives. He plays basketball against a white kid, and he wants to beat him so badly, just to show him that the natives can do sports as well. He gets pulled over in a white community by a cop, because of his race, which shows the racism. Another racist event is when he enters a 7/11 and the store clerk is afraid of him, because he believes that the narrator is about to rob the store. This short story is like “The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian” a story about the Indian society being disconnected from the white society, and being oppressed in poverty. Both narrators in both stories, leaves their home, to seek and fulfill their dreams, in the hope of breaking the pattern and stopping the diversity in our society. They are both, so to say, nomads.