Journal - Essay Example

Alexie, Sherman. ""What You Pawn I Will Redeem” by." 2003. 29 January .
Notes
Commentary
“One day you have a home and the next you don’t….because it is my secret story, and Indians have to work hard to keep secrets from hungry white folks” (1).
In opening the story, Alexie provides his readers with notice in trying to formulate the ending. Thus, this passage sets the action for the entire story. Furthermore, this passage provides the readers with a whisper together with a delusion, so as to guide their way.
“…flunked out two semesters, worked various blue and collar jobs, married two or three times, fathered two or three kids, and then went crazy….i never dated or married more than one woman at a time. I didn’t break hearts into pieces overnight. I broke them slowly and carefully…I disappeared. I’ve been disappearing ever since” (1).
“Homeless Indians are everywhere in Seattle
We’re common and boring, and you walk right by us with maybe a look of anger or disgust or even sadness at the terrible fate of the noble savage. But we have dreams and families” (1).
“Rose of Sharon is a big woman, about seven feet tall if you’re measuring overall effect and about five feet tall if you are only talking about the physical. She is a Yakama Indian of Wishran variety. Junior is a Colville…He’s got those big cheekbones that are like planets with little moons orbiting them…” (2).
“Do you believe in Heaven?” he asked
Which heaven? She. Asked
I’m talking about the Heaven where my legs are waiting for me….my legs will probably run away from me when I get to heaven. And how will I ever catch them? You have to get your arms strong ….so that you can run on your hands” (7).
“No, it’s tribal. It’s an Indian thing. When you win, you’re supposed to share with your family” (8).
“Lonesome for Indians…. Big Heart’s is an all-Indian bar. Nobody knows how or why Indians migrate to one bar and turn it into an official Indian bar. But Big Heart’s has been an Indian bar for twenty-three years” (9).
This passage underpins the perception that Jackson had a more complicated and poorly understood way of life. Hence, the mistakes of his past continue to haunt him, and this passage exposes the sufferings he caused, and the anxieties this causes him to feel. He realizes how reckless he was, and the description of the “I didn’t break hearts into pieces overnight. I broke them slowly and carefully”, provides a concrete detail that allows the reader to come to the same realization.
The syntax of this passage highlights the predicament of homelessness among Spokane Indians in Seattle. Their way of life is vanishing. In addition, the plainness and simplicity of the sentences forms a somber tone suitable for the plight it describes.
The visual imagery here vividly describes and compares the three friends’ physique. It clearly brings out the reason why the narrator accompanies the two, due to their intimidating figure.
The function of this humor is to break from the monotony and the lengthy conversations. Alexie has applied such humor, in order to create an element of surprise about Jackson grandmother character, and which is intertwined in expectations plus misdirection from the norm of the story. The intention is to make a memorable character.
This passage is interesting, since Jackson is saying it, so as to appear generous by observing his Indian tradition of openhandedness. However, his intention is to charm her by appearing to be a romantic man, and which as revealed earlier is phony, after breaking three women hearts carefully before running away.
The connection between loneliness, despair and alcoholism across the Spokane community is seen in this passage, since most of them turn to alcohol in trying to overcome or bury their anguish and misery. Furthermore, the inclusion of the detail that “Indians migrate to one bar” is significant, since Jackson depiction of Indians being cohesive add to the story emphasis on the sense of community across the tribe. It also reveals the negative side of them leaving their land, as so many of them accept the American culture and are destroyed socially and physically.
““Mr “Grief and I went a few rounds.”
“It looks like Mr. Grief knocked you out
“Mr. Grief always wins” (12).
“You Indians. How the hell do you laugh so much? Just picked up your ass off the rail road tracks and you’re making jokes. Why the hell do you do that? “The two funniest tribes I’ve ever been around are Indians and Jews, so I guess that says something about the inherent humor of genocide.”(13).
“
“Yeah we Spokane, we are passive, you know. Were mean with words. And well cuss out anybody. But we don’t shoot people. Or stab them. Not much, anyway” (14).
This passage stresses how when grief taken out of proportion can result in traumatic events in one life, as Jackson loses his ability to think wisely and make proper decisions. The repetition of “Grief” highlights the outcome of the narrator’s sadness following his grandmothers’ death and which is important in the connection between the two.
This passage portrays the structural symbolic advancement to ethnic identities formation by the whites. Alexie introduces the contemporary racial discourse in the text, so as to bring at the fore the extent of rejection, and almost pathological repudiation of racism within the social, cultural, legal, and political institutions.

The Spokane community members are unwilling to divulge even a small, rather trivial detail about them. This notion of not being aggressive to others, and hiding anything that appears different, or that others might not approve of, reveals the reason for all of their secrets. In addition, the simplicity of the syntax applied reflects the unfussiness of their thoughts, by never doubting that shooting or stabbing is unacceptable.
. Read More