Struggle in The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian Essay Example

According to greifstatics.org, 1 in 5 children will experience the death of someone close to them by age 18. Struggle it's hard but to get over the struggle you must learn to cope healthily. In The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie, all characters deal with Struggle in different ways. Due to Junior's challenges he faces throughout the novel he learns to cope which helps him mature. Junior matures throughout the novel because he goes through grief, relationships, and daily struggles. Therefore Junior's struggles cause him to mature because of how he chooses to deal with them. 

Junior challenges he faces throughout the novel result in him maturing in his grieving moments. A quote that shows this is when Junior states “I wanted to punch him in the eye and make him blind” ( p. 11). This quote shows Junior is maturing whilst in his grieving moments because he's opening up on how he feels when a family member dies. Since Junior is opening up about his feelings it results in him maturing because he's realizing how opening up makes him feel better. Another quote that shows this is when Junior states  “After my grandmother died I felt like crawling into a coffin with her.”(p. 99). This quote shows Junior is opening up about how he's feeling about his grandmother's death. When Junior opens up he is coping because he's accepting her loss by talking about it which causes junior to mature.

Junior's challenges and struggles he faces throughout the novel result in him maturing with his relationships. A quote that proves this when junior says“Bang! Rowdy punched me”(p. 52). This quote indicates Junior's relationship is rough because he got punched by Rowdy. Junior soon discovers that it's not okay for anyone to punch someone in the face let alone your best friend which  Junior to try to fix his and Rowdy's relationship. that results in Junior maturing with him and Rowdys friendship because of junior efforts to fix it. Another quote that shows Junior’s relationships are struggling is when Junior says “Today at school, I was missing Rowdy, so I walked over to the computer lab, took a digital photo of my smiling face, and emailed it to him.”(p. 130). Junior is trying to restore his and Rowdys friendship by sending a nice photo but Rowdy clarifies that he doesn't want to be friends with a photo responding to Junior’s email. This causes Junior to want to try even harder to rebuild his and Rowdys friendship. This proves Junior is maturing since he is attempting to resolve his friendship rather than giving up. In conclusion when Junior notices his relationships are struggling he always tries to fix the problems which as a result pushes Junior to mature and grow in his relationships.

In the beginning, when Junior is faced with relationship and grief struggles he would ignore them until he realizes he needs to overcome them to mature. A quote that shows Junior is trying to overcome his daily obstacles is when he says “Of course, I was suspended from school after I smashed Mr. P in the face, even though it was a complete accident” (p. 71). Since Junior threw a book at Mr. P he got suspended which caused Junior to realize that he shouldn't have handled the situation in the way he did because he hurt someone.  Junior apologizes to Mr. P and tries to overcome this situation in an appropriate way which he ended up doing resulting in Junior Maturing. Another quote that shows Junior is trying to overcome daily obstacles is when Junior states “I just figured I wasn't going to be good enough to make even the C squad.” (p. 112). In this quote, Junior shows growth through his day-to-day struggles because Junior didn't expect to make it on the team because he didn't think he was good enough. Once Junior found out he made the team he realized he is good and that he deserves to be on the team. This causes Junior to overcome his feeling of not being confident and good enough. In conclusion, when Junior is faced with daily obstacles in the beginning he would ignore them until he realized they were affecting him and he decided to face them now, which makes Junior grow as a person. 

Due to Junior’s challenges and struggles he faces throughout the novel it results in him maturing and growing as a person. Due to Junior struggling with grief, relationship, and daily struggle it causes him to mature. Junior matures because he experiences grief, relationship, and daily struggle. In The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-time Indian by Sherman Alexie, the characters struggle in their day-to-day life. The struggle is hard but to get rid of the struggle an individual must cope healthily. The struggle is important because it teaches someone how to cope with their struggle in a healthy way that will cause them to grow and mature. In conclusion, Junior is maturing because he chooses how to cope and deal with struggles.