Character Sketch

Character Sketch

Arnold Spirit (a.k.a Junior) is a fourteen-year-old boy who lives on the Spokane Indian Reservation.  Arnold enjoy playing basketball and drawing in his free time. Arnold and his family are dealing with poverty, most of the time there is not enough food to eat or not enough money to buy gas, forcing him to hitchhike to school and back.

Arnold is a hydrocephalic, Arnold tells the reader in the very beginning that he has “water on the brain” (1.1). Arnold is at the risk of brain damage and is susceptible to seizures. Arnold impairment becomes a struggle in daily life on the reservation, he is picked on because he is different than everyone else. Arnold has a way of expresses himself and that is through his drawing and his works. Arnold enthusiasm for knowledge comes through his drawings, as he reaches out to everyone around him.

Arnold is a kid that is just trying to find himself whether it is a outcast from the reservation or Arnold from the white high-school at Reardan. Arnold learns to to see himself as Junior the Indian or Arnold the traitor.