Alexie Sherman What You Pawn I Will Redeem - Essay Example

December 17, Recovering the Stolen Indian Identity in Alexie’s “What You Pawn I Will Redeem” The history of the Indian people in the United States portrays the arrival of white colonizers who took everything Indians owned- their land, lives, and to a great degree for many Indian tribes, their language and their culture. Though several scholars would contest this historical interpretation, Sherman Alexie shows how colonization affected and still affects modern-day Native Americans. In “What You Pawn I Will Redeem,” Alexie narrates the story of Jackson Jackson, a chronically homeless Spokane Indian man who needs money to buy back an important family relic that was stolen years back. Jackson’s stated quest is to earn $999 to buy her grandmother’s regalia from a pawnshop, while his true quest is to regain his Indian identity that he learns that he has lost because he has allowed the history of the oppressive white colonizer conquer his Indian spirit. The stated quest of Jackson is directly related to his heritage and symbolically connected to the history of the Native American people. Jackson’s explicit quest is to regaining his grandmother’s regalia from a pawnshop. Jackson narrates that it has been stolen from them, which signifies the connection with how white colonizers also stole from the Indian people. The paper sees the Indian regalia as a symbol for the stolen lands, lives, and cultures of the Indian people. In addition, the title itself says something about Jackson’s inner quest. “What You Pawn I will Redeem” refers to “you” as the white colonizers and the modern society that reinforce the oppression of the Indians in different ways, including limiting their access to the ownership and/or preservation of their ancestral lands and the continuation and promotion of their native beliefs and practices. “I” refers to Jackson and the Indian people. They are a collective because Indians are a collective society. By saying “I,” Jackson personalizes his quest as something that is connected to the entire history of his people. By also saying “pawn,” Alexie suggests that the Indian people has only loaned their “possessions” to the past and modern society. They intend to reclaim what they own someday, which is why it also says “will redeem,” which is in future tense. The title already asserts that the story is about a stated quest and its foundation in Indian history. Jackson’s true quest, as the title already suggests, consists of an individual and collective pursuit for the Indian identity through sarcasm. Alexie writes in a sarcastic and ironic tone that mocks the homelessness of Jackson that also attacks him as an individual and society as oppressors of Indians. Jackson sarcastically says that remaining homeless is “probably the only thing [he’s] ever been good at” (170). The sarcasm indicates that his praising of his homelessness is a way of criticizing himself. The sarcastic tone criticizes Jackson’s shame for not knowing how to hold himself up and to cope with the demands of the modern society enough to have his own home. This tone comes from the word “probably” that questions what Jackson thinks he knows about himself. The sarcastic tone underlines that being good in being homelessness is shameful because Jackson cannot even provide for his basic needs in life- food, water, and shelter. The story, however, goes in deeper to what causes homelessness in the story. It asks why Jackson and so many other Indians are homeless. The paper asserts that the answer is that the colonizers took away their lands, which is why the Indians are now homeless. As a people, Indians are tied to their lands as part of their identity. They have a close and nurturing relationship with their land as a source of their livelihood and culture, which is why, without it, they have not only become lost physically by being homeless, but also internally, by losing a sense of their identity. The Plains Indian tells Jackson: “Do any of us know exactly what we are?” (170). Jackson mocks the Indian’s “philosophical” question, but by mocking it, he underlines it. By mocking this question, he poses an unresolved dilemma for the Indians. Do they know who they are without their lands? Do the present-day Indians know themselves without their social and spiritual connections that come from these lands? These are the questions that make Indians also feel homeless inside. They are homeless because they feel their identity is lacking something without their lands. In addition, Alexie uses metaphors and irony to underscore the pursuit of Indian identity in the story and how it is a struggle against the oppressive modern society. Jackson tells Officer Williams that he has been “killing himself” since his grandmother died (186). The paper interprets this as a metaphorical form of suicide. Jackson is killing himself out of guilt because he cannot defend his Indian heritage and identity. He is also dead inside because of inner loss. His loss becomes greater, in addition, because he cannot win against a dominant mainstream society. At one point in the story, Jackson remembers the bloody history of his people, and he resists talking about it because, though he is a “strong man,” “silence is the best way of dealing with white folks” (171). His tone is self-defeated, which suggests that he is not a coward, but he knows what his people’s long struggle for their land and identity did to them. Instead of fighting openly, they have resorted to silence, which is a metaphor for assimilation. To be silent also symbolizes repression because they can no longer speak of their past and their ongoing struggles and demands even in present times. They must be content in what they have, including their homelessness. Another example of modern oppression from modern society is what happens inside the pawnshop. Jackson already proves that he owns the regalia, and yet the pawnshop owner wants him to buy it, claiming that he is willing to lose a dollar from the transaction because “[t]o lose a dollar would be the right thing” (173). The verbal irony is that the owner is saying it is moral to lose a dollar, as if his loss is as great as Jackson’s individual and collective loss. The paper perceives that Alexie wants to argue how white people rationalize that what they are losing to the Indian people is great, so that they can undermine what the Indian people has lost, perhaps even forever, because of colonization and modern-day oppression. Alexie and the Indian people face a difficult challenge in such a society. The journey in attaining the money for the regalia, however, allows Alexie to find his Indian identity because he reconnects with his people and his inner self. Jackson makes some money from the lottery ticket he won but he spends it on Indian people by buying food and drinks. On the one hand, it looks like he wasted money, instead of making more. On the other hand, he reconnects with lost souls like him. He goes to the Indian bar because he is lonely for Indians, and then, he describes the Aleuts as being “lonely for cold and snow” and him as being “lonely for everybody” (191). The paper believes that, by being together, though for a short time, they find their Indian connection, the tie that binds them all. This tie is that they have lost something, but they must fight in finding it. They must fight in finding their identity together. In the end, when Jackson recovers the regalia, he dances afterwards: “The city stopped. They all watched [him] dance with my grandmother. [He] was my grandmother, dancing.” The image is powerful because the society has become spectators, while Jackson becomes an active identity. The dance is a metaphor for freedom to become. The transformation from dancing with to being the grandmother suggests that Jackson has learned that he does not have to look for the past to know who he is because the past is him. He has to remember that he is an Indian and that he will do better this time for his people. The self-knowledge that Jackson attains is his realization that he is his people and he is no longer homeless because of that. The story “What You Pawn I Will Redeem” is about the past and its connection to the modern issues of Indians in America. Alexie shows readers that the Indians lost everything because of colonization, and now, that loss continues to homelessness because of a society that seems to see their issues as invisible. But Jackson resists the idea of being homeless inside. He fights for the regalia as his stated quest, but his deeper quest is to regain his identity for himself and his people. To regain it, he must bond with his fellow Indians and to remember what they have lost. To know what is missing is to fight for it. The dance is not the ending. It is the beginning of a new life. It is the beginning of an Indian home that is built from within. The Indians will redeem, and they will do so through a symbolic dance for their past and future. Work Cited Alexie, Sherman. “What You Pawn I Will Redeem.” Ten Little Indian Stories. New York: Grove Press, 2003. 169-194. Print. Read More