In this time of grief, why do you think Junior laughs so much? What are the specific moments he laughs the hardest? - Max B-P
For Junior, grief and struggle have been consistent things because of his being Indian and living on the rez. Although, as introduced at the beginning he draws cartoons to make fun of the world, because, ”words are two unpredictable”(9). His cartoons are visual representations of him laughing at the world. He, like many others, laughs so that the pain goes away. He denies bad things and pretends they never happened. Junior is not alone, and many people on the reservation do the same thing with drinking and drugs. His dad goes off and gets drunk after a bad thing happens, people today in our world go get opioids to forget temporarily about things they don’t want to face. Junior simply laughs to deflect his pain and it makes it easier for him to cope. Everybody has coping methods and laughing is Junior’s.
One specific moment where he laughs very hard is when his sister Mary dies. In the car with his dad, the dad is quite sad but Junior laughs very hard the whole way home: “I felt like I might die of laughing… I couldn’t figure out why I was laughing. But, I kept laughing as my dad drove out of Reardan”(204-205). I think he laughs so much at this moment because he was hit hard by Mary’s death. I know that Grandma and Eugene were both big parts of his life, but Mary is the person he wanted to follow in life. She didn’t like the rez either so she just left. He has wanted to leave for a while now and be a wanderer like her so her death proves the difficulty of leaving.
How do Junior's cartoons relate to his laughing?
Why does Mary's death cause the most laughing?
I think that Junior’s cartoons relate to his laughing because they are both ways in which Junior deals with pain. After Grandmother-Spirit’s and Eugene’s death, Junior just resorted to drawing cartoons as a way to get his his emotions and thoughts out. Then, after Mary passed away, Junior just started laughing. Laughter was a way to look at the bright side of things. I think that Junior laughed when times got tough and he wanted to take his mind off of them. As it states on page 166 “We kept laughing. It was the most glorious noise I’d ever heard. And I realized that, sure, Indians were drunk and sad and displaced and crazy and mean, but dang, we knew how to laugh. When it comes to death, we know that laughter and tears are pretty much the same thing.” This allows readers to understand that laughter is just how Junior copes. He needs a way to vent. A way to get his emotions out, and laughter is sort of like the alternative to crying. In Junior’s mind they are the same, and when he’s upset and sad, instead of crying, he chooses to laugh. It’s one or the other, and laughter to Junior is the better choice. It’s more positive. Junior just needs to get his feelings out, and his cartoons, his writing, and his laughter are all ways to do that. Do you think that Junior prefers laughing over crying?
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