<P> Dr. Bryan Ripley Crandall, director of the Connecticut Writing Project at Fairfield University, posits in his critical essay "Adding a Disability Perspective When Reading Adolescent Literature: Sherman Alexie's The Absolutely True Diary of a Part - Time Indian" that the book presents a progressive view of disability . Arnold has what he calls "water on the brain", which would correctly be referred to as hydrocephalus . Crandall points out that Arnold is never held back by his disability, but in fact laughs at himself: "With my big feet and pencil body, I looked like a capital L walking down the road ." According to Crandall, the illustrations by Ellen Forney, which are meant to be the cartoons that Arnold draws, represent a new way for the disabled narrator to communicate with the readers: they "initiate further interpretations and conversations about how students perceive others who are not like them, especially individuals with disabilities ." Arnold's hydrocephaly doesn't prevent him from becoming a basketball star at his new school . His disability fades as a plot device as the book progresses . </P> <P> David Goldstein, in his paper "Sacred Hoop Dreams: Basketball in the Work of Sherman Alexie", analyses the importance of basketball in the novel . He suggests that it represents "the tensions between traditional lifeways and contemporary social realities ." According to Goldstein, Junior / Arnold sees losing at basketball as "losing at life ." The Reardan kids are eternal winners because of their victories on the court: "Those kids were magnificent ." Goldstein notes how basketball is also a sport of poverty in America--"it costs virtually nothing to play, and so is appropriate for the reservation ." </P> <P> Nerida Weyland's article, "Representations of Happiness in Comedic Young Adult Fiction: Happy Are the Wretched" describes how Junior / Arnold is an example of the complex, not - innocent child often presented in modern young adult literature . As detailed in Alyson Miller's "Unsuited to Age Group: The Scandals of Children's Literature," society has created an "innocence of the idealized child"; Alexie's protagonist is the opposite of this figure . </P> <P> According to Weyland, Alexie doesn't play by the rules--the use of humor in the book is directed at established "power hierarchies, dominant social ideologies or topics deemed taboo". Weyland suggests that the outsized effect of this feature of the book is revealed in the controversy its publication caused, as it was banned and challenged in schools all over the country . Weyland states that Alexie's book with Forney's black - comedy illustrations explore themes of "racial tension, domestic violence, and social injustice" in a never - before - done way . As an example, Alexie uses the anecdote of the killing of Junior's dog, Oscar, to expand on the idea of social mobility, or lack thereof--Junior states that he understood why the dog had to be killed rather than taken to the vet, because his parents were poor and they "came from poor people who came from poor people who came from poor people, all the way back to the very first poor people ." Weyland notes how readers are likely to be uncomfortable with Junior / Arnold / Alexie making light of topics of such importance (racism, poverty, alcoholism) through the use of dark comedy . </P>

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