Analysis chapter 2

The diary “The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian” written by Sherman Alexie was published in September 2007. The second chapter is about the poverty of Junior and his hole family.
The chapter can be divided into two paragraphs. The first paragraph is about the wish of Junior who wants to buy Kentucky Fried Chicken, but isn´t able to because it´s to expensive (p.17-18). The second paragraph tells about Juniors best friend, his dog Oscar, who becomes ill and the parents can´t pay the vet,so they decide to shoot the dog down.

Now I´m going to analyse Juniors feelings, emotional conditions and his language.

“Okay, so now you know Í´m that I´m a cartoonist.” (p.17, l.1) says Junior. He shows us that he can describe his feelings better by drawing cartoons. The repitition “poor-ass”  (p.17, ll.8ff) underlines his lack off self-confidence. It also expresses his and their parents poverty. With the exaguration “And believe me, a good piece of chicken can make anybody believe in the existence of God.” (p.17, ll. 22f), he makes his wish of eating some chicken clearer. In the following he tells us that being hungry is just one bad thing about being poor (c. p. 18, l1). “So, okay, I´ll tell you the worst thing. Last week, my best friend Oscar got really sick.” (p.18, ll. 5f) speeks Junior. With this he makes sure that his dog is more important to him than his own hunger problems. “Honestly, Oscar was a better person than any human I had ever known.” (p.19, ll15f), with this he underlines this again. At next a conversation starts between Junior and his parents. His parents tell him that they can´t pay the vet because it will be to expensive (c. p.20, ll.1f). Junior tries to convince them by saying he´ll get a job and  pay the vet back later on (c. p.20, l5) . After a while he feels he can´t convince them “There was nothing I could do to save Oscar. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing.” (p20, ll14ff). With this repetition his desparation gets clear. His father wants him to carry Oscar outside and wants to shoot him down (c. p.20,ll24ff.). He thinks it will help Oscar because when he´s dead he doesn´t have to suffer anymore (c. p.20,l26). “I want to hate[…]. I want to hate […]. Iwant to blame […]. (p.21, ll8ff.). This parallelism underlines his desparation aswell. On the one hand he is really angry of his parents but on the other hand he can´t blame them because they aren´t guilty for their poverty and his world would “explode” (p.21, l14) without them (c. p.21, ll11ff).

To put it in a nutshell he seems to be really depressed person and he needs more self-confidence. without is friend he gets more sad and looses a really important part of his life.

One thought on “Analysis chapter 2

  1. The diary –> the novel
    hole –> whole
    to expensive –> too
    tells about –> tells the reader something about
    to shoot the dog down. –> to shoot the dog.
    his language. –> and the language which is used to express his emotional state.
    off self-confidence –> lack of
    exaguration –> exaggaration
    aswell –> as well
    to be really depressed person –> to be a really depressed person

    Gute Einbindung von Zitaten. Gute Verknüpfung von stylistic devices und Wirkung

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