What You Pawn I Will Redeem and Burial - Assignment Example

 “What You Pawn I Will Redeem” and “Burial” Life is an interesting aspect of humanity. It may have different meanings to different individuals. To one, it may be about constant reflection while to someone else it may be a roller coaster of ups and downs. Its analysis may also take different viewpoints depending on the background of the individual concerned. Different writers and composers try different styles to bring out different aspects of life. They use different literary tools to draw different emotions about life. The works of Sherman Alexie and Cathy Linh Che may be good examples of how viewpoints on life. In particular, “What You Pawn I Will Redeem” by Sherman Alexie and “Burial” by Cathy Linh Che talk about life but in different ways. An analysis of both pieces shows life in different situations, stages and forms. In her Poem “Burial”, Che uses a sad tone to express the end of a life through death. The poem also brings to light the many sad and painful events that have punctuated the life of the grandmother. The persona in the poem narrates how the grandmother has lost a lot throughout her life. The poem demonstrates how painful life can be. By taking us back to the past, Che demonstrates the harshness of life. Although death may be a painful experience to those close to the dead, events in life may also bear pain. The grandmother’s life well demonstrates this. In the narrative, “What You Pawn I Will Redeem”, Alexie employs different tones as the persona goes through different situations in his life. The tone of the narrative is dependent on how the persona feels. At times, there is humor and merry while at times its all sarcasm and frustration. Faced with the problems of homelessness and alcoholism, Jackson shifts from one emotion to the other and in so doing changes the tone of the narrative. The variation in tone may help to show how different phases of life come with different emotions. Whether one’s status is wanting or not, life has different situations that evoke different emotions in everyone. The two literary works both bring out a similar kind of conflict. Both depict an individual versus self kind of conflict. Both Alexie and Che take us back into the past and review life in a way that demonstrates conflict within the person. Whereas Che takes us back to the dead grandmother’s past, Alexie takes us back into Jackson’s past incorporating his dead grandmother as well. The persona reflects on the past and the inability to have interacted with the grandmother more frequently while she was alive. There is an indication of some regret in the tone of the poem. The persona buries a past of not seeing the grandmother enough times while she lived. The persona also bears an accusatory tone talking of all the things the war did to the grandmother. In, “What You Pawn I Will Redeem”, the persona takes us through events that occur in twenty four hours of his life. As he narrates the events, he takes us into the past as he talks of his family and more specifically his grandmother (Alexie, 2003). That helps develop the conflict within the persona. He tries to reconnect with his family through his grandmother’s regalia. That resolve to redeem the regalia sets into motion a chain of events that eventually lead back to the pawn shop. The two pieces of work have some similarities as well as differences. That is in the use of literary tools and the view of life they present. They both speak in the first voice and hence the viewpoint is that of the first person. In the poem, “Burial”, the persona seems to be talking to the dead grandmother. The two literary works also have a mention of war and its effects. In “Burial”, the war shatters the grandmother’s life while in the narrative Jackson talks of how his grandmother cared for injured soldiers during World War II. While “Burial” seems to list events that caused pain to the grandmother in her life, “What You Pawn I Will Redeem” seems to present choices that the persona has to take, and which would affect his life in one way or another. The poem talks of the grandmother’s grief when the grandfather died and the war that took so much from her (Che, 2014). It seems to illustrate the consequences of events on the grandmother’s life. The narrative talks of how Jackson interacted with others and the choices he makes which seem to derail him from accomplishing his mission. Although he needs to raise money to get the regalia, he seems to be spending the little money he gets on the people around him. He not only spends money on his friends but also others that he barely knows. For example, he buys the Indians at the bar shots (Alexie, 2003). Among the literary devices that Alexie uses in the narrative are similes, exposition, situational irony and allusion. At the beginning of the narrative, he uses exposition to give background information on Jackson. That sets the plot of the narrative as it introduces Jackson as a homeless man giving a brief history of his past. Throughout the narrative, there is plenty use of similes. An example is where Jackson says, “He’s got those great big cheekbones that are like planets,..” (Alexie, 2003). Here, he uses the device to describe Junior’s appearance creating a mental picture in the reader’s mind. The fact that Jackson seems to be spending every penny he gets when he is supposed to be searching money to redeem the regalia is an irony. He later goes to the pawnshop with just five dollars but the shop owner gives him the regalia. That further adds to the situational irony as he achieves his goal even when all indications seem to suggest otherwise. The use of flashback into the narrative introduces Jackson’s grandmother. It furthers the theme of life as she succumbed to cancer while Jackson was a teenager. Alexie uses sarcasm to great effect. When Officer Williams asks Jackson whether he remembers the person that beat him, he sarcastically says Mr. Grief beat him. That brings the impression that for Jackson, life is not always a sad affair. He can afford to make fun even when the situation seems to suggest something different. In the poem, “Burial”, Che uses symbolism and imagery to develop the conflict. Where the persona talks of burying, it may as well have two meanings. One is the literal meaning of burying into the earth and another would be to forget. While the grandmother’s burial is into the earth, the persona does not literally bury the other things the poem mentions. The persona resolves to forget them. That illustrates symbolism. At the beginning of the poem, there is use of imagery as the persona talks of the rain and odor of the earth (Che, 2014). That serves to create a mental picture in the audience. The use of such literary devices in the poem enhances the conflict. Throughout the narrative, Jackson keeps going back to his past where he talks about members of his family. That seems to further the conflict in the narrative as his past keeps catching up with him. One can possibly conclude that his motivation to redeem the regalia gets a push from the need within him to reconnect with his family’s past. On the other hand, the persona in the poem seems to want to bury everything from the past. There is a mention of burying things from the past with the grandmother. The persona seems to want to start life all over again, leaving the past behind. In the end, the two works seem to illustrate the irony of life. Where one person may want to leave their past behind, another may want to revisit their past. That develops an individual versus self kind of conflict. References Alexie, S. (2003). What You Pawn I Will Redeem. The New Yorker, (April). Che, C.L. (2014). Burial. Poem-a-Day, (May). Read More