Sherman Alexie’s “The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-time Indian”: A Narratological Analysis

Abstract

The present study pinpoints the actions that take place in Sherman Alexie’s novel “The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-time Indian” and facilitates the writer in his enterprise to construct a story. The analysis, incorporating qualitative study method, tends to depict as well as reflect significantly upon the key actions and their progress in the novel by employing the theory of narratology supported with A. J. Greimas’ “Model of Actantial”. Greimas reduces Vladimir Propp’s seven spheres of action into six by identifying those actions as six actants, applicable to more convoluted and non-fictional works as well. This study, keeping in focus those actions that revolve around novel’s protagonist Arnold Spirit (nick name: Junior), analyzes those contributing factors which make an action complete cogent and coherent. The study further explores that the contributing actors do not merely alter their roles quite frequently but also the axes they are working in now and then and how it happens that when an actor is playing a role in an action, the role of that actor is startlingly come apart not just into two actants but into two dissimilar axes as well in the same action.