In Sherman Alexie’s novel, The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, Alexie uses each individual character to explain themes throughout the novel. Gordy in particular is Jr’s friend that he meets in his educational journey at Reardan High school. Gordy is sought to be the most intellectually smart person in the school. He is also not the most popular in the school either. But when Jr enrolls in the school, he is not suddenly the “The Most Interesting Kid”, as this would be the situation at any other school. Alexie did this to show that even though being the new kid you are supposed to be interesting, but an Indian or of another race at a new school isn’t interesting because they are an outsider and seen as another” because of social and economic status. Alexie appeals to the average high school kid by giving situations that happen every day in the school house. While in class Gordy stands up for Jr by backing up Jr’s statement to prove Jr to be right, proving the teacher wrong. This is where their friendship begins. While Gordy never really saw Jr in the beginning, he sees him now. Jr confronts Gordy and asks to be his friend, but Gordy replies in a way that Jr did not expect. Gordy simply thinks that Jr is coming on to him as if he was gay. This is interesting because in modern day no guy …show more content…
Jr does not feel the sense of belonging until Gordy comes around. When Gordy and Jr have talks, Gordy gives Jr a highly thought out and researched response rather than what Jr would have gotten from Rowdy. He also puts his advice into a sense of individual to community. To how each person being unique is supposed to fit in to society by not changing themselves. Rather than how a person is supposed to be as the others are to not be judged. Although both Jr and Gordy are coming into themselves and are both smart, they do not necessarily know where they fit in to Reardan or
Junior easily loves Rowdy the most out of all of his friends. Even after all of the times that he was mean to Junior and when he has his outburst, Junior knows that Rowdy needs friends and that it’s all just temporary. Junior also knows Rowdy’s secrets and has never given them away. This is the sign of a true friendship. Rowdy also has never given away any of Junior’s secrets which shows that even though he’s been mean, he still wants to be friends. Junior also loves his other friends because of how much they support him too, especially Penelope and Gordy.
He shows his courage, brains, and emotions in different ways throughout the entire book. He shows his courage when he beats Rowdy in basketball, his brains when he stood up to his teacher and corrected him, and his emotions when mourning for himself, his tribe, and everyone they had lost. Even though Junior may not seem like the best role model, nevertheless, we can all learn something from him, and about how, even though he had a hard life, he is still fighting, and isn’t giving
Gordy La Chance, who is the narrator of this story, can best be described as an introvert. He is living in the shadow of his recently deceased brother,
The story is told as an historical narrative about the lives and relationships of the four main characters in this movie, Gordy, Chris, Teddy, and Vern. This relationship created a sense of belonging that is unparalleled, still being of significant impact to the narrator as he depicts though his telling of the story. The narrator, one of the boys named Gordie, is specifically impacted through this friendship, creating the sense of self belonging he longed to develop. Gordie had been physically and mentally starved of belonging from his parents. As his parents favourite child had died (Gordie’s brother Denny), they had fell into a great depression, attempting to remove all emotion from their soul. This is shown throughout the movie, as Gordie has flash backs of his past, with the most memorable one being the graveyard scene. As Gordie’s brother was being buried, his father approached him stating that “It should have been [Gordie].” Despite the sadness and importance of the situation, his father still delivered those horrendous remarks to his grieving son. His parents used Gordie as a punching bad, an outlet for there anger at the world for taking there Son so soon. From these remarks and actions spurred a deep dejection towards Gordie. He felt that he wasn’t welcome, and actually started to believe his father’s remarks. However, as his circle of friends developed throughout the journey, and Gordie started to learn about his friends in depth, Gordie felt that his friends accepted him and found him useful. He finally had a meaning in such a diluted world, a sense of self worth. One example of Gordie finally experiencing a sense of belonging was while the sitting around the camp fire, the boys beseeched him into sharing one of his marvellous stories, that he personally believed were childish and
Junior is the protagonist’s brother. He is always watching out for Ishmael and does his best to stay together. He traveled with Ishmael and their friends until the place they were at got attacked by the rebels and separated them. Ishmael went one way and his friends went the other way. Junior’s role is important because he because was always
The setting gives the effect of having things look up for Junior, and the purpose is he has been broken down so many times. He moved schools, had no friends at a point, fought for friends, and had people that were close to him die. His whole life he's had every right to be cynical. At points in the book, he is not the happiest person in the world, but he perseveres. At this point in the book he is seeing that he has the choice to continue to be cynical, but he is not. His whole life he has had water in his head, gets beat up and put down by almost everyone, and has only one true friend. He is finding out that those people are just "jerks" and there are people that truly care about him like Gordy and Penelope at Reardan. He realizes that for
Gordy helps him with school and supports him in his passion of drawing. Roger, the king of the school, helps Arnold out by driving him home after school one night “Roger, being of kind heart and generous pocket, drove me home that night. ”(129) And Arnold later states that “If you let people in your life, they can be amazing.” 129 Arnold has realized that he does not need to lie about his economic status for people to like
His conversation with Cherry made him think about the group that he lived in compared to hers. He is a lot like Jem from the passage in To Kill a Mockingbird. Jem states “There’s four kinds of folks in the world. There’s the ordinary kind like us and the neighbors, there’s the kind like the Cunninghams out in the woods, the kind like the Ewells down in the dump, and the Negroes.” Just like Ponyboy, he thinks that the world is divided into groups of people.
His friends are a big part of what helps him get through these rough times. In the novel ATD, Alexie shows that friendship can be expressed in different ways such as keeping secrets, respecting each other, and protection. To illustrate this, Alexie shows that friends can be trusted with secrets. More specifically, on pages 106 and 107, Penelope shares with Junior that she is bulimic after he hears her vomiting in the girl’s bathroom. Junior finds out about this and it makes them closer, Junior says that “Everyone is absolutely shocked that Penelope chose me to be her new friend” (110).
Junior is one of those kids at school who people hate, due to the fact that he is obnoxious to people for no reason. He is only friends with Stan, Kat, and his girlfriend Juliana. She doesn't want to
Junior does this because all of the other kids families at Reardan are exceptionally wealthy and he doesn’t want to feel different or possibly inferior to the others. He also worries that the other kids will not accept him as a friend if they find out he is poor. When he finally reveals that he is poor to Penelope, the response he gets is not what he expects. She is supportive of him and Junior describes it as “I figured she was going to march out of my life right then. But she didn't.
In the book, Junior wants to be friends with Gordy because he notices how smart he is,
His interests and behavior were different from other Greasers (gang members that were more like family). I feel that reading this book helped me because not only was I going through that face of life, but that almost everyone feels like they do not fit and you try to find people that like how you
When people succeed through hard times they usually have to power through some difficult circumstances to get to where they want to be. In the book The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, Sherman Alexie tells the story of Junior, a Native American high schooler who decides to challenge himself by going to a high school outside of his neighborhood and comfort zone. Even though numerous obstacles come in Junior’s way, he keeps his focus on powering through those obstacles and not giving up. Setting challenging goals is not usually the easiest option, however even the remote possibility of success makes some people take that chance. When Junior first arrived at his new school he begins to face setbacks right from the start.
He tends to think more logically than any of the other boys, and can make reasoned decisions and plans, however he struggles with his self-worth after the death of his superstar brother. The act of going on a physical journey, led Gordie to change the way he thinks and feels, therefore progressing as a character. He establishes at the beginning of the movie how low his self-esteem is, in the sense, that he is not as good as his brother was, who did pass away in a jeep accident. His father, displaying degrading attitudes towards Gordie, and his mother who acts like she has lost her only son, both help to create the low subjective approach Gordie feels about himself and what he can do. The director has captured the male identity within the film, and their supposed role models force the boys to seek guidance from their friend group rather than their families.