Mr. P was crying. I couldn’t belive it. I’d never seen a sober adult cry. “But not you,” Mr.P said. “You can’t give up. You threw that book in my face because somewhere inside you refuse to give up”. I didnæt know what he was talking about. Or maybe I just didn’t want to know. 

Jeez, it was a lot of pressure to put on a kid. I was carrying the burden of my race, you know? I was going to get a bad back from it.

Theme:

We see how life is a race with Arnold’s hard battle at getting out of the reservation. Therefore, I think the theme is “dreams and hope”. We see how his teacher want’s him to get out of there, because he is different and have a lot of hope. He also have battle inside about hope. He has been teached that Indians don’t deserve anything, but inside he knows he want’s to do something.

 

How do we honor the drunker death of a young married couple? HEY, LET’S GET DRUNK! Okay, listen, I’m not a cruel bastard, okay? I know that people were very sad. I knew that my sister’s death made everybody remember all the deaths in their life. I know that that death is never added to death; it multiplies. But still, I couldn’t stay and watch all of those people get drunk. I couldn’t do it. If you’d given me a room full of sober Indians, crying and laughing and telling stories about my sister, then I would have gladly stayed and joined them in the ceremony.

Setting:

A native-Indian reservation. The story is set in a reservation filled with alcoholics and people without hope. Everyone living in this reservation doesn’t have any intentions of getting out of the reservation. People solve problems with violence and lives after rules set by the community’s. There is almost no evolution in the reservation as we see when Arnold finds out even his books haven’t been changed since his parents went to school. This text over here shows how alcohol is so important for the setting in the reservation.

 

“No, I´m serious. I always knew you were going to leave. I always knew you were going to leave us behing and travel the world. I had this dream about you a few months ago. You were standing on the Great Wall of China. You looked happy. And I was happy for you.”
Rowdy didn´t cry. But I did. “You´re an old-time nomad,” Rowdy said. “You´re going to keep moving all over the world in search of food and water and grazing land. That´s pretty cool.”

The plot:

The plot is about Arnold, the Indian reservation kid who wants to get out and explore the world. He changes from his reservation school to another school with better teachers. He has a harsh time getting a lot of crap from the other students. They are very racist, at one point they compare Indians to an Afro-American and a buffalo having babies. At the same time, he gets called a traitor at home and doesn’t feel like he belongs anywhere. He keeps going and after making new friends everything seems easier. He finds a lot of motivation in his new friends making him feel important after they show that they care for him.  This really shows when Arnold has his conversation with Rowdy. He gets told that he is made to go out there.

 

“Dude!” Roger said. “Man, don’t sweat it. You should have said something earlier. I got you covered.” He opened his wallet and handed me forty bucks. Holy, holy. What kind of kid can just hand over forty bucks like that? “Whenever, man, just have a good time, all right?”

Character development:

The book is about Arnold which has an identity crisis. He wants to go to another school with better teachers and more focused students. He want’s to get out and explore the world. He changes a loot through the book, becoming a lot stronger and facing big challenges. He does his best in tackling them and sees that everything is easier when you have people to back you up and support you. Like when Roger here helps him out when he doesn’t have any more money. He also drives him home which is very nice of him. Arnold gets to see that everyone has something good inside of them. Even his old teacher from the reservation.