The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian

In Alexie’s novel The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, I was immediately drawn to the interesting differences between the Indian reservation and the city where all of the white children lived. The Indians never came out of the reservation from the time they were born until they died. They were raised there and their children were as well. They are all a very closely connected group, almost like a very large family. While on the other hand, those who live in the city and off the reservation are very distant and most never stay in the same town or area for their whole life. They are not constricted to one place with certain people. It was expected in this story for the Indians to stay on the reservation and to not even think about leaving, especially not a child just to go to school to escape. If an Indian left the reservation they were looked down on by their family and friends, and no Indian wants to be neglected and frowned upon.

The part in the novel where I found it most interesting was when Arnold first arrives at Reardan. He describes the rules of Indians and how it is stated that almost under any circumstance it ends in a fight with the other person. Then when Roger made a racist joke to Arnold and he punches him in the face, he was confused when Roger didn’t fight back immediately and then not at all. He states, “I had followed the rules of fighting. I had behaved exactly the way I was supposed to behave. But these white boys had ignored the rules. In fact, they followed a whole other set of mysterious rules where people apparently DID NOT GET INTO FISTFIGHTS," (65-66). He was not used to the different environment and different set of “rules” like he was brought up under. It goes to show that he really was entering a whole new world and was taking such a big leap by leaving the reservation, and his family, and his best friend, and in reality he was saving himself from being stuck there all his life.