~Parker Reesey, Class of 2023
A literary reflection on the life of Arnold Spirit
Poverty doesn’t give you strength or teach you lessons about perseverance.
~Arnold Spirit
No, poverty only teaches you how to be poor.
Hope is as rare as a pegasus in the mind of Arnold Spirit. Even so, it is the only thing in his life that stands to combat the unforgiving poverty that controls him. At this point hope is the only thing left that can help him to escape from the clutches of poverty that controls himself as well as his reservation.
Poverty is seemingly unbeatable. In the book The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie, Arnold pushes against the weight of the world as his family’s poverty has been just another setback to vanquish. As a Native American living in the Spokane River reservation in Washington, Arnold, his family, and almost every other person living in the reservation is poverty-stricken. The book describes how he tries to escape his poverty by moving to a new school located outside the reservation land. Furthermore, the school consists of mostly white ethnicities. Arnold Spirit Junior, Junior for short, often has to walk or hitchhike 22 miles to and from school due to his family’s lack of gas money. Again, he often laments that poverty is a great divide, making his life overwhelmingly harder.
It sucks to be poor, and it sucks to feel that you somehow deserve to be poor. You start believing that you’re poor because you’re stupid and ugly. And then you start believing that you’re stupid and ugly because you’re Indian. And because you’re Indian you start believing you’re destined to be poor. It’s an ugly circle and there’s nothing you can do about it. [Why Chicken Means So Much to Me, Pg. 13]
This single paragraph worth of text proves the existence of the vicious cycle of being Native American and being stuck in a state of poverty. He has even referred to himself as “half homeless”. Junior’s loathing towards poverty itself fuels him to chase the small glimpses of hope. Junior refers to himself as “a poor-ass reservation kid,” and he yearns to “escape the reservation;”furthermore, he believes he can make a better life for himself as a cartoonist off of the reservation land, away from poverty. Junior dreams throughout the book of leaving the reservation and the poverty that it walks hand-in-hand with. Junior scorns poverty and claws for a way out. Poverty deals a crushing blow to junior as a child; however, it is hope that lifts him from the wreckage.
Hope is a ticket to better places. In the book The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, by Sherman Alexie, hope provides a respite from crushing life circumstances and becomes yearning for a better life. Arnold fights for hope against the everpresent poor qualities of his life and reservation surroundings, setting his heart on escaping the lazy education of the rez school is the last glimmer of hope left for him, even if it means facing hardships. Arnold has fought through many challenges throughout his life brought on by his medical issues and many uncaring, mean characters around him by maintaining his hope.
You fought off that brain surgery. You fought off those seizures. You fought off all the drunks and drug addicts. You kept your hope. And now, you have to take your hope and go somewhere where other people have hope. [Hope Against Hope, Pg. 43]
Arnold has found a source of hope trapped within his cartoons, written on the page with emotion and the sense that there is something in this world he is good at. “I think the world is a series of broken dams and floods, and my cartoons are tiny little lifeboats.” [The-Black-Eye-of-the-Month Club, Pg. 6]. Arnold has been beaten down over the first fourteen years of his life, as he claims that hope for me is like some mythical creature, but he has retained his hope for better and brighter futures outside of the rez; furthermore, he believes those opportunities were opened with his cartoonist skills and fighter’s spirit as well as his grandmother stating They’re going to respect you now. Hope is like a key to the city, opening the door to infinite possibilities. However, hope can also reveal the gateway to challenges.
Challenges are like a hurdle, made only for those willing to leap. The Absolutely True Diary of A Part Time Indian, by Sherman Alexie, challenged me to peer deeper into the text to further uncover the true themes of the story. This piece of literature challenged me to identify and prove the themes; furthermore, it challenged me to find detailed evidence to support my credence upon the themes. It allowed me to rethink claims that I had previously believed and acknowledge their flaws.
I started reading The Absolutely True Diary of A Part Time Indian as a class assignment; I only read when I needed to fulfill requirements. However, throughout the story, my curiosity grew for the subject and I soon found myself reading a few chapters every night before I fell asleep. Once halfway through the book, I was challenged with the task of uncovering the themes. Thankfully, I found this easy to accomplish thanks to my previous attention to detail. I eventually completed the book having found new ways to identify themes and read efficiently.
This book educated me on the state of some native Americans and how that can affect their mental health as well as physical health. Throughout it, I have felt many feelings of joy, sympathy, empathy, and grief as the story has many twists and turns. Previously, I believed all classic literature to be boring and to include words that were beyond my mental capacity; however, this book proved me wrong as it was enjoyable and sarcastically pleasing. Overall, it challenged me to think in a different way about the previously boring type of books as well as challenged me to identify themes that may be difficult to find.
When I started reading, I believed the coming weeks would be miserable; I would be writing reflections and reading hundreds of pages about a book that I did not like. Even so, I pushed on, faced the challenges head on, and came to the realization that I enjoyed reading and writing about the book.
All of us can jump the hurdle if we are willing to give it our all.
