Anyone can imagine what it is like to be homeless, but there are few who truly understand what it is like. People have ideas in their heads of what it is like living on the street and like to pass judgement on what the homeless should be doing to improve their lives. In What You Pawn I Will Redeem, Sherman Alexie challenges these ideas and judgements with his portrayal of Jackson Jackson, a homeless Spokane Indian living on the streets of Seattle Washington. Like many people living on the streets, Jackson has lost his job, family connections, and is slowly losing himself as he lives a life without purpose in an alcohol-clouded haze. What makes him different from other homeless people he is that he has lost his connection to his tribe as well,
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This is causing him to lose himself and slide into depression. He is in need of redemption that will reconnect him with his tribal culture and allow him to find himself, lifting him out of his hopeless situation and helping him to heal from the wounds of his past failures. Jackson’s quest to redeem his grandmother’s powwow regalia leads him to his own redemption.
Jackson’s quest begins when sees his grandmother’s powwow regalia in a pawn shop window and is given twenty four hours to raise nine hundred and ninety nine dollars to buy it back. He decides to treat the redemption of the regalia as a quest, and it gives him purpose. On his quest to raise the money necessary to buy his grandmother’s powwow regalia, Jackson commits several acts of selfless generosity that help lead to his redemption. Jackson buys some scratcher tickets from a Korean grocery store and wins one hundred dollars, a huge sum of money for someone hardly able to get enough cash together to buy a fast food burger. As soon as the cashier Kay hands the money to him, he gives her back one of the twenties, …show more content…
He steals from a friend twice while the friend is passed out from drinking too much. He spends the seed money given to him by pawnshop owner on booze. He blows the eighty dollars he wins on more booze, gets into a fight with the bartender, and passes out drunk on railroad tracks, putting himself in great danger. His spending, while generous, is irresponsible and sets him back when he should be saving for the regalia. Even on the morning the money is due, when he receives thirty dollars from a cop who picked him up, he spends twenty five of it on breakfast for himself and a few strangers. He is repeatedly given opportunities to improve his homeless situation or save money to buy the powwow regalia and he wastes them. His behavior is frequently self destructive. He says “Come on, I know how to fight,” (Alexie 107) to the bartender, resulting in a broken nose and bruised ribs. He does not appear to care about his own well being and demonstrates this disregard by falling asleep on railroad tracks. His immoral behavior and irresponsible spending do not in improve his homeless situation. It can easily be said the quest does nothing to improve his situation. Although he wins his grandmother’s powwow regalia, he has just as little money as before and now he is low on sleep and has an array of physical injuries from his fight. His immorality,
This is causing him to lose himself and slide into depression. He is in need of redemption that will reconnect him with his tribal culture and allow him to find himself, lifting him out of his hopeless situation and helping him to heal from the wounds of his past failures. Jackson’s quest to redeem his grandmother’s powwow regalia leads him to his own redemption.
Jackson’s quest begins when sees his grandmother’s powwow regalia in a pawn shop window and is given twenty four hours to raise nine hundred and ninety nine dollars to buy it back. He decides to treat the redemption of the regalia as a quest, and it gives him purpose. On his quest to raise the money necessary to buy his grandmother’s powwow regalia, Jackson commits several acts of selfless generosity that help lead to his redemption. Jackson buys some scratcher tickets from a Korean grocery store and wins one hundred dollars, a huge sum of money for someone hardly able to get enough cash together to buy a fast food burger. As soon as the cashier Kay hands the money to him, he gives her back one of the twenties, …show more content…
He steals from a friend twice while the friend is passed out from drinking too much. He spends the seed money given to him by pawnshop owner on booze. He blows the eighty dollars he wins on more booze, gets into a fight with the bartender, and passes out drunk on railroad tracks, putting himself in great danger. His spending, while generous, is irresponsible and sets him back when he should be saving for the regalia. Even on the morning the money is due, when he receives thirty dollars from a cop who picked him up, he spends twenty five of it on breakfast for himself and a few strangers. He is repeatedly given opportunities to improve his homeless situation or save money to buy the powwow regalia and he wastes them. His behavior is frequently self destructive. He says “Come on, I know how to fight,” (Alexie 107) to the bartender, resulting in a broken nose and bruised ribs. He does not appear to care about his own well being and demonstrates this disregard by falling asleep on railroad tracks. His immoral behavior and irresponsible spending do not in improve his homeless situation. It can easily be said the quest does nothing to improve his situation. Although he wins his grandmother’s powwow regalia, he has just as little money as before and now he is low on sleep and has an array of physical injuries from his fight. His immorality,