Forgiveness In The Powwow At The End Of The World

Sometimes forgiveness is a hard concept for people to grasp and others forgive too easily, but when do we know when to forgive or whom we should forgive? What happens when we do not forgive? In “The Powwow at the End of the World,” Sherman Alexie experienced several mishaps in his reservation and even the surrounding areas, for example, the water levels were raising, the dams were breaking, and the cities and towns were flooding. Even though all of those events were happening, Alexie was told to forgive every single one of those events because after each event, something lead to a blessing for him and his community. As a building full of treasures, artifacts, and knowledge burns down, what is the one thing you would save and why? Once the …show more content…
In Sherman Alexie’s perspective of forgiveness in his poem, the people in his reservation told Alexie to forgive the events that caused him and the reservation pain, even though he did not have to listen to those remarks, he did in order to show respect for his community and to also teach himself on how to cope with future tragic events. Choosing whether or not to forgive someone or something can be thought of as selfish because the person may only think that what happened affects only them, but the reality is that it could affect a small group of people, a community, and other aspects. However, deciding to forgive could lessen the weight on your shoulders and a sense of relief could be …show more content…
However, whatever seems to get thrown at us, most of the time, we have managed to cope with it and sometimes the horrific things in life can shine a light on what is beautiful. I think the salmon in the poem represented that feeling. The flooding, the broken dams, the lost Indians escalated into a huge celebration of the salmon that was caught from the river on the reservation. The natural disasters were pain to others, but someone in this world, or people surrounding the area, found a benefit from the disasters; the salmon gave the people on the reservation a reason to celebrate because the salmon gave the people a full stomach, and the salmon died to keep the people on the reservation healthy; furthermore, Alexie stated, “... we Indians have gathered around the fire with that salmon who has three stories it must tell before sunrise: one story will teach us how to pray; another story will make us laugh for hours; the third story will give us a reason to dance. I am told by many of you that I must forgive and so I shall when I am dancing with my tribe during the powwow at the end of the world” (20-25). The people on the reservation managed to look past the evil in life to see the