Tyler Turner's Blog Post #2

By Anonymous -
            Sherman Alexie’s The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian tackles many important topics such as racism, death, alcoholism, and self-identity. These are all particularly heavy topics and for good reasons, as they are all issues everyone either has gone through or will go through during their lifetimes. However, Alexie is still able to deliver a comedic, irreverent novel that captures the spirit of an optimistic, ambitious teenager without coming off as hollow or condescending. This authenticity is what allows Alexie to connect with the audience and is what makes the novel so successful. The author accomplishes this through a variety of stylistic choices that set it apart from other novels.

           The primary method Alexie uses to convey the protagonist’s emotions and experiences is the juxtaposition between tragedy and comedy. Throughout the novel, the main character, Junior, struggles with many difficult issues in his life, such as suffering from racism from his peers and dealing with the deaths of his family and friends. Despite these dire circumstances, Junior is still able to make jokes at the expense of these incidents, primarily through the comics he draws and his sarcastic wit. Not only does this allow a way for Junior to vent his anger and sadness in a healthier way than the violent tendencies of his best friend Rowdy, but it also provides a way for the reader to better connect with the character and his struggles. The use of comics provides a window into Junior’s thoughts, giving the reader a better understanding of how he sees the world and the people who inhabit it. His comedic charms provide a veneer of authenticity to the character. He talks and act like a normal teenager rather than an adult in a child’s body. This allows the audience, particularly the disenfranchised adolescents the novel is aimed at, to see themselves in the character and develop a feeling of reassurance and acceptance that they are not alone with their problems as they read through the novel. 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Growing Pains - The Symbolism of the Tree in Speak

By -
I have felt the paralyzing pain of internal disease. The kind of trauma that causes your mouth to curl in and swallow you whole. I, like so many other women, are walking the halls in Melinda’s shoes in “Speak.” I thought Laurie Anderson did a phenomenal job of twisting all of the tribulations a high school girl goes through, into the tree that Melinda is. Whether we’re as strong as an oak or weak as a bush, we have all gone through the disease that strikes Melinda from the inside out. Melinda is like a half-dead tree. Some parts of her strive to blossom and create beauty. Other parts are broken and diseased. Like a dead tree, Melinda needs to save herself and “cut off the damage, [so it] is possible for the tree to grow again” (187). The symbolism of a tree is significant in “Speak.” Trees reflect her growing process. In the beginning, Melinda is a sick and lifeless tree. Her view is negative and dark. She’s so far past repair, bursts of sunlight do her no good. Sunlight would be pe
Read more

How Starr Goes from Acting to Embracing in The Hate U Give

By -
In The Hate U Give, Starr Carter is caught between two worlds. She lives in a predominantly black neighborhood, but her father sends her and her brothers to a private school where she is surrounded by white people. She talks about acting differently depending on what group she is around, which can create some identity problems. She says on page 11, "Funny how it works with white kids though. It's dope to be black until it's hard to be black." When at Williamson, she sees white kids that think it's cool to engage in black culture, but she knows they don't understand what she goes through in her Garden Heights community. She witnessed her friend Natasha's death when she was 10 years old, and she sees gang activity in her community all the time. When she is among her black friends, like at the party, they tease her for hanging out with the white kids. This reminds me of a Drake song where he says, "I used to get teased for being black, and now I'm
Read more

Speak and the Symbolism of Nature

By Anonymous -
   Laurie Halse Anderson's,  Speak , dives into the murky, muddy waters of adolescent rape culture. When the book was published in 1999, rape was not a comfortable topic to discuss with adults, let alone teenagers. Anderson writes about Melinda Sordino and her freshman high school experience which is turning out to be rather negative. Soriano stands as a thriving young role model for struggling teenage girls all over the world. Although she isn't an outstanding student or have plenty of friends to juggle, through Melinda, other young women can see that it's completely normal and okay to struggle in high school not only academically, but socially and emotionally. One of my favorite parts of the novel isn't a super obvious quality. Throughout the novel, Melinda's attitude changes and grows with the coming of spring and through nature and art, she learns to move past her troubling end of summer experience and once again find the importance of her voice.    Melinda st
Read more