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Growing up, recall your relationships with your peers. Those people that you associated with, did they help shape you into the person you are today? Peers during adolescents plays a significant role as a form of social support. In the semi-autobiographic book, The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, by Sherman Alexie, the main character Junior is shaped by the people around him.
Social relationships, the relationship of those around him, is something that changes how Junior sees the world around him.
He develops these relationships during his time living in the reservation and going to school at Reardan. His relationships with Rowdy, Gordy, Roger, and Penelope affected his course in life.
His best friend Rowdy is hurt and feels betrayed when Junior tells him that he is leaving the reservation and will start going to school at Reardan (Alexie 2007). Junior, being born different, was always bullied by everyone on the reservation including Rowdy, but with Rowdy it was different.
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The two boys are best friends that have very little in common, but what draws them together is that they are both a bit damaged and considered outsiders in their own community. Rowdy comes from a broken home and Junior was born with “water on the brain”.
Gordy was his first friend when he transferred into Reardan. Junior forms a relationship with Gordy when Gordy informs the teacher that Junior was correct about the information they were learning in class (Alexie 2007). Gordy is the one that teaches Junior that learning is fun and enjoyable and totally not boring.
Penelope is Junior’s girlfriend that he meets at Reardan. They first meet on his first day of school and she makes fun of him. He then develops a crush on her and admirers her from afar. There second meeting was when he finds her coming out of the bathroom after she vomits. They then from a boyfriend/ girlfriend relationship after the incident, initially he believes that she is only dating him to spite her father (Alexie 2007).
When Junior meets Roger, the typical school jock, he punches Roger for insulting him with a racist joke. Dumbfounded by this, Roger is in a state of shock that Junior would punch him. They form a friendship when Junior starts dating Penelope and Junior’s perception of Roger changes into that Roger is a pretty nice guy.
Junior is an outsider in both his community and at school. No one seems to notice or pay attention to him except a select few. His relationship with these individuals influences how he sees the world around him. He comes from a family of low social-economic status. His father is an alcoholic, his mother is an ex-drunk, his grandmother was killed by and drunk driver, and his sister was killed in a fire while being drunk (Alexie 2007). He is often bully by the people on the reservation and is rejected by them.
Junior doesn’t seem to have very good interpersonal relationships throughout the book. His only friend back on the reservation is Rowdy. They do at a point stop talking to each other and Junior can’t find a way to help them reconcile to his best efforts. At Reardan, he is ignored by everyone except for a handful of people are Gordy, Roger, and Penelope.
Being a Native American going to an all-white school, Junior has a hard time fitting in; not that he had a better time fitting in at his old school back at the reservation. Interpersonal skills help in building relationships between peers, which Junior lacks (Berger 2014).
Early in the book, he chooses not to confront issues, such as him being bullied, and this leads him to become even more picked on. His communication skills are abysmal, the same with his best friend Rowdy. They both lack interpersonal skills, and this is something they both share. Later in the book, Junior makes progress in communicating with others. Him having friends at school boosts his self-esteem into help develops his interpersonal skills (Zitek 2012).
There are many ways to show communication between people. From verbal to non-verbal types of communication, Junior displays these traits throughout the book. He has a special connection with Rowdy that they don’t have to have a verbal conversation to understand each other. They both understand what they each other are thinking just by a look. During the basketball game, they both knew what each other were playing for and what the game meant for them.
Intrapersonal skills are communication that occur within a person. Used for analyzing, reflection, and clarification, intrapersonal skills help a person recognize situations or concepts (Lackenbauer 2012). This awareness helps the person sense who thy are or have a solid idea of what their identity and personality are. The three main aspect of intrapersonal communication are perception, expectation, and self-concept.
Junior develops a sense of who he is by the end of the book. He understands who he is to the Native American community and who he is at school. In the reservation, he is just a punching bag to them and a traitor for leaving the it. At school he is the Native American kid who transferred in and is dating Penelope and hangs out with Gordy. Junior understands what it is to be poor and Native American. He knows that most of the people living in the reservation are alcoholics. Most importantly, he understands that he will not become like them and know that he must leave the reservation for him to achieve his dream.
Living in the reservation with his family, he understands that they are living in poverty. He understands the concept of being poor at a fairly young age (Potter 2018). For him though, he does have a family that cares about him even and supports his decisions. Being from an area and family of low social economic status, Junior self-esteem was likely affected by this (Zitek 2012). He is embarrassed that he couldn’t afford to have the pictures taken at prom and that he didn’t have any money to pay for his and Penelope’s meal at the diner. He also never corrects his classmates when they think that he has money from the Indian casino because he is ashamed that he has no money.
His relationship with Penelope is a bit of a mismatch. She is the prettiest girl in school and he is the most unpopular boy at school. Despite this mismatch, they both dream of getting out of where they are from. He dreams of leaving the reservation for good and she dreams of leaving Reardan and traveling the world. Her father disapproves of their relationship because he is not white, and Junior can understand this, but he doesn’t care because even though the relationship may just be a sham, as least he has a someone to call his girlfriend (Alexie 2007).
The romantic relationship between the two is a foundation of interpersonal evaluation for Junior (Lackenbauer 2012). The discrepancy between the two helps them understand what they mean to each other and what roles they play. Studies show that the existence of positive emotions in a relationship indicates a happy relationship in that it helps motivate individuals into partaking in successful behaviors. Junior and Penelope both show positive emotions towards each other and this does push them to pursue their dreams (Lackenbauer 2012).
Both Junior and Gordy are sort of the loners at Reardan, in that Junior is ignored because he is a Native American and that Gordy chooses not to associate with any of the other students. Gordy is the smartest student and teaches Junior that learning is something to take joy in. Their relationships start as Junior misunderstands Gordy’s intentions. Junior thinks that Gordy is defending him for what he said in class, but Gordy was just doing it for the sake of science. They form a relationship and connection that stems from both wanting to learn (Gordon 2012).
Peers play a large role in developing an adolescent’s idea of identity. Relationships with others contribute in this development, whether they are healthy or not (Berger 2014). A form of an unhealthy relationship is bullying. Junior faces bullying his whole life. He faces physical, verbal, and social aggression throughout the book. The impacts of bullying can lead to depression, anxiety, substance abuse, and academic loss (Berger 2014).
Junior faces bullying on and off the reservation. He is relentlessly bullied by everyone on the reservation, physically and socially. On Reardan, he is bullied verbally and socially. What makes this different is how Junior reacts to the bullying. He uses a combination of ignoring, retaliating, and avoiding when he is bullied (Berger 2014). He ignores and avoids most of what people say about him and he also retaliates to Roger’s insult about the Native Americans.
His relationship with Rowdy is an odd one. They are both best friends and arch-nemesis. Rowdy would be labeled as a bully victim. He, like Junior, also comes from a low social economic status family. He is often abused by his alcoholic father and this causes him to bully others. For bullying-victims, they sometimes have close friends, in this case Junior (Berger 2014). Rowdy is not rejected from others as in general most bully-victims are not. Rowdy is the star basketball player at the reservation school and his self esteem was likely boosted when he elbowed Junior during the match.
A key part in Junior’s understanding of social acceptance was from his friendship with his peers (Potter 2018). Rowdy was situation was like Junior, they both were from families and environments of low social economic status, he and Gordy both have similar interest in learning, he and Penelope were both dreamers. Similarities draw adolescents closer as they have something to relate in one another and promotes positive behaviors (Potter 2018).
Social acceptance is the ability for people to accept or tolerate each other’s differences and diversity (Berger 2014). Junior and Roger didn’t see eye to eyes when they first met but Roger makes a kind gesture to Junior that changes his view on him. Roger becomes a close friend of Junior and his understanding that Junior comes from a poor family he does what he can to help him. It is not pity he gives Junior, it is acceptance (Gordon 2012). He understands that Junior is different from him and he accepts him for who he is. This also gives Junior a different view of Roger. Roger wasn’t a racist bigot, but rather a kind individual who helps others.
Though there are similarities in each of Junior’s peers, they are all different. Their backgrounds are all different from Junior and the way they react to their situation are different (Gordon 2012). Penelope’s relationship with her dad and the environment around her into an anorexic. Rowdy takes his father’s abuse and projects it to others. These are common in adolescents who grow up in negative environments and parents who react negatively to being in a low social-economic status (Gordon 2012).
Even with little similarities between peers, it can go a long way in adolescent development (West 2014). The perceived similarities between peers can be most beneficial in strengthening bonds and help build a sense of where an individual stand. Self-other comparison is determined by adolescents when their own personal and social worth base on how they fare against another peer. Adolescents compare themselves as a way of self-improvement and motivation (West 2014). This helps contribute in developing their self-image and this is a lifelong occurrence.
It is noted that while most individual benefits from healthy comparison to others, some will individuals will experience negative feedback from the self-other comparison (Berger 2014). If they are constantly comparing themselves to others and falling short, they become dissatisfied with their self-image. This can lead to a sense of guilt, remorse and can lead to negative behaviors (West 2014). This is seen in Penelope as she is deeply dissatisfied with her life and in so engaging in destructive behavior such as becoming anorexic and begins dating Junior as a way of rebelling.
During adolescents’ changes occur in many areas as this is a critical developmental period for them (Berger 2014). Adolescents are influenced by their surroundings, more so by their peers than their family during this period. With other peers, adolescents are likely to have an egocentric mindset. They believe that everyone’s eyes are on them and that they are the center of attention (Berger 2014).
In Penelope’s point of view, she believed that everyone was judging her, that she was the perfect girl (Alexie 2007). This made her resort to anorexia to maintain her image. It was only when Junior gave her empathy that she decided to change her lifestyle, even if it was just by a bit.
Empathy was also given to Junior by Roger. He helps give money to Junior because he knows that he didn’t have any to pay for him and Penelope’s meal at the diner. Roger and Penelope also confront him when he says his father is going to pick him up. Feeling shame about being poor, Junior tries to lie at first but after they bombard him for the truth (Alexie 2007). He gives in and admits his father isn’t going to pick him up and that he was going to walk home. Roger drives him back home and continues to drop him off some days after school (Alexie 2007).
Nostalgia can play a role in helping adolescents promote relationships between them (Abeyta 2015). Nostalgia is a positive emotional memory that can be revisited. If there is a conflict that occurs in the relationship, if the parties look back at the positive memories they had together, it can help build a stronger bond (Potter 2018). The goals that are trying to be achieved by looking back at the nostalgia is to satisfy the belongingness needs. Looking back at nostalgic memories, they can help build a sense of belongingness (Abeyta 2015).
As mentioned already, Junior’s relationship with Rowdy is a difficult one. It is a one-sided relationship for a while after Junior left to Reardan. Junior would always reflect on the nostalgic memories he had with Rowdy whenever he felt down. Whenever he felt away from home, it was always the memories he has with Rowdy that brought his spirit up. After Junior and Rowdy reconcile their differences, they reveal that they have always thought about each other. They overcome this conflict in their relationship and move forward.
Overall, Junior’s choices in life were heavily influenced by his surroundings and circumstances (Zitek 2012). What influenced most were his peers as they all played a part in who he becomes. His relationship with Roger, Penelope, Gordy, and Rowdy all helped him in his journey of understanding who he is. Just like in adolescent development, Junior’s development throughout his middle childhood was influenced by his peers. He faced rejection and bullying and experiencing that, he found out where he stood socially. His concrete operational thought helps him figure out who he is to himself and others. He understands that he is a Native American in an all-white school, that he is poor, and that he needs to get out of the reservation or else he will end up like all the other Natives in the reservation.
Junior’s resilience to all the negatives around him helps propel him into making decisions that are best for him even though they may not be the most popular. His reaction to his low social economic only helps his concept of self-identity faster. Instead of feeling inferior to others he strives to be better. He sees that his family may not be the best, but they are better than most children at Reardans. Adolescents need social relationship to develop their emotions, identities, independence, and self-esteem.
Friendship of the Protagonist Diary of an Indian. (2021, Dec 21). Retrieved from https://studymoose.com/friendship-of-the-protagonist-diary-of-an-indian-essay
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