We didnÂ’t keep score (Alexie, page 230). In the graphic novel, The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, the author, Sherman Alexie, writes about a young Spokane Indian, named Junior. In this novel, you read about Juniors childhood on a reservation and his struggles during that time. The intent of this analysis is to show how the race/cultural, gender, and class/economic lenses helped the reader gain a better understanding of the beliefs and feelings of the characters throughout this novel.
The focus of this paragraph is to show how race/cultural lenses help the reader interpret the beliefs and feelings of the main character, Junior. Right at the beginning of the story, Junior said: And whats more, our white dentist believed that Indians only felt half as much pain as white people did, so he only gave us half the novocaine (Alexie, page 22). The reader can use this quot
e to understand that Junior believed that most white people are racist and that he most likely felt discriminated against when the dentist pulled 0 of his teeth after only giving him half the amount of novocaine he should have received. Another quote that helped the reader was Who has the most hope? White people, my parents said at the same time. Thats exactly what I thought they were going to say (Alexie, page 45). This quote shows the reader how Junior believed that his parents hopes and dreams were suppressed by the white people so greatly, that they lost all of them. The reader can infer that this made Junior feel sad because his parents said exactly what he thought they were going to say. In this paragraph, I told you about how the race/cultural lenses helped the reader interpret Juniors beliefs and feelings. Although this lens didnt only affect how the reader saw Junior.