Month: July 2016

In this essay I will be explaining how Junior is presented as an outsider. In The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian is about a young Native American and how he has to choose whether to remain in his community or go school in a different town, which is racist towards his people.

At the start of the book the author presents him as outsider by giving him a birth defect, which makes him look different to everyone else. I think that this makes him an outsider because he does not look like an ordinary child, which prevents him from interacting with other children because he may feel insecure. This would make him an outsider because he would be expelling himself from the community and staying by himself all the time. A quote that supports my statement is “Wierdo me”. The word ,Wierdo, means a person who dresses or behaves strange or eccentric. This means that Junior is trying to call himself strange.

Another stage in the book when Junior is presented as an outsider is when he is travelling to Reardan. This makes him an outsider because he is travelling to different places, which could mean that he does not have enough time to get to know or mix with people because he is always having to travell. A quote that supports my statement is,” I always felt like a stranger”. The word stranger implies that someone is not accustomed to a certain person or surrounding. This means that Junior was not used to being in this town and round the white people, so he wouldn’t be comfortable or himslef around them. This makes him an outsider because he would be the odd one out, as in he would be the only one who doesn’t know anyone there.

Junior is presented as an outsider again when he first arrives at Reardan. The author presents him as an outsider by giving him bruises all over his face. This makes him an outsider because his face would bring him attention as his face would be marked.

The first moment, in which Junior is presented as an outsider, is when he appears at Reardan with a black eye. This makes him a bigger outsider than he already is because as he is a Native American the white people wouldn’t be used to seeing them at there school. In addition to this he walked into Reardan with a black eye, which brought extra attention as it appeared that he had gotten into a fight. Another point that made him an outsider was the fact that Reardan’s school mascot was an Indian. This makes Junior an outsider because by using an Indian as their mascot they are indicating that they think less of Native Americans or that they are do not believe that Indians are equal to white people, so being in an environment which people think little of you would make you feel unwanted and different to everyone else. A quote that helps the point that Junior is an outsider is, “They stared at me.” The word ” stare” helps the point because by saying this, the author is implying that the white kids thought that junior wasn’t like them because when you stare at something you do it because you are not use to something or have never seen it.

Junior is introduced as an outsider in the third paragraph by the author making him take a journey through two towns. This makes him an outsider because he is travelling through two towns, which he did not know, so this made him feel like a stranger. In this paragraph Junior mentions that he feels like he is half Indian in one place and half white in the other. I think this means that Junior feels like he does not fully belong to a particular community and is outcast by most members from both communities. The phrase, “I felt like a stranger” implies that he did not feel like he belonged in the community or place he was currently in. The word stranger means a person who is unknown in a certain place, so saying that you felt like a stranger implies that you felt like nobody knew who you where in the certain place. This is how I think Junior was presented as an outsider.