The Rez

The Reservation, also known as the Rez, in The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian is a place that is centered around the idea of false hope. To expand on that, first the actual explanation of the Rez is needed. The Reservation is a community for a pack of Indians and few other people, such as low income white people. At the schools they reuse book, and for the main character, Arnold, he is bullied by people who has given up and lost hope, because he's different and smart. Arnolds leaving symbolizes that he's going to find something different and make something out of himself.
While reading the book, I thought about my old school and how I was sort of like the Arnold there. My grammar school, Kohn, was a recently closed and I was one of the only people there who was going for school instead of violence that was spread around there. One day when my parents picked up my report card, my teacher suggested I go to a better school, like Whitney Young. And because I respected her opinion, I did and always grateful for her. My school was a symbol of lost hope  and Just like junior, I left. And It takes an hour and a half on the train to get home just like the long distance for Arnold.

Native Son

Woo! Let me jump on the hate train on Bigger. I don't hate Bigger, I don't sympathize for him either, but I can admire his choices. Bigger has been isolated along with other African Americans for as long as he lived and the only thing he knows about the Whites is that they dislike his kind (they even used the second person whom Bigger killed, who was black, only as evidence not as a charge). In the situation where Bigger was trying to be befriended by Mary Dalton, I can understand why he would not want that to happen. It seems like she was trying to change the way things were and at the time the only thing she was doing was distracting Bigger from his job. She got herself drunk in which she needed Bigger to assist her up the stairs. And even if Bigger confessed after the murder and said they were both drunk, there was no way he would be able to get out of that case without being accused of rape and still trialed for death. I enjoyed Bigger's ambition and how he lived the rest of his days "free". The only part I can't agree with is including Bessie if at one point he knew she would slow him down if he needed to flee. And after seeing the reactions Bigger got from the whites, his color wasn't the only thing showing in this book, but theirs as well. Ultimately Bigger came through in the end, which makes him admirable.