Essay # 2: The Moral of the Story It takes a second to change everything It was a summer night‚ August 17 to be exact‚ at 10:30 PM. I still remember how quiet it was sitting on the kitchen table with my hands close together. All you heard was the tick-tock of the clock. It was the night that I found out that a secret was released. As I sat down in my wooden chair‚ with my hands crossed‚ me eyes wide open‚ and my feet touching the floor; I heard my aunt Elizabeth speak of what had happen
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"What You Pawn I Will Redeem" is the story of a financially strapped Spokane Indian man faced with the task of coming up with nearly one thousand dollars in twenty-four hours in order to reclaim his grandmother’s stolen powwow attire from a pawnshop. The story takes place in Seattle over the course of one day‚ and is narrated by the central character‚ Jackson Jackson. Jackson introduces himself to the reader by telling of his move twenty-three years ago from Spokane to Seattle to go to college
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In the novel The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie and the poem “There is a Longing…” by Chief Dan George‚ the authors apply metaphors and diction to express that people have to change their way of thinking in order to achieve their dreams. At the beginning of the book‚ The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian‚ the main character Junior expresses why he loves to draw. He claims that it is a way to talk to the world and it makes him feel important. He dreams of
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Alexie uses the phrase "There is more than one way to starve" in his essay to describe the issues faced within the Indian Reservation‚ and outside of it. At the beginning of the 8th grade portion‚ he notices girls at his farm town "white" school starving themselves intentionally by anorexia and bulimia. The purpose of starving themselves was to try and maintain a skinny appearance. He stated "I sat back and watch them grow skinny from self-pity." Alexie then mentions that back on the reservation
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In the book‚ The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian‚ the main character Junior describes himself very detailed. The way the main character explains about himself‚ he explains that he wasn’t very normal like other people. For example‚ he mentions the water in his brain (brain damage)‚ having 42 teeth‚ etc. When transferring to an all-white school‚ it was hard to transition himself into that because Junior didn’t know anyone and he was the nerd of his school. Meeting Rowdy had a big impact
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In the novel Reservation Blues‚ Sherman Alexie utilizes the characters dreams to illustrate the relationship between the Native Americans and the white people. These dreams show an ongoing struggle amongst the two societies‚ in addition to the deterioration of the Indian culture. These dreams are better described as nightmares because not a single one of the dreams are positive and bare anything respectable about the Native American society. Sherman Alexie attempts to disclose the humiliation and
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In‚ The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie‚ Junior’s life has always been black and white‚ in the sense that there is a white world and his world‚ but he has never gotten a chance to explore the in-between or grey: the mix of the white world and his‚ and he is not expected to. The Spokane Tribe was reluctant to associate with the white people on the outside of the reservation because white people were the main party who had forced seclusion upon them. Going to a white school
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The story What You Pawn I Will Redeem is about a homeless Native American Man named Jackson who goes on a metaphorical quest to get back his grandmother’s regalia which he has stumbled upon in a pawn shop. The pawn shop owner says he can sell Jackson the $1000 regalia at a discounted price of $999. This is representative of how America treats Native American. This regalia was your grandmothers and was stolen. Well I bought is for $1000. Here’s what I can do for you. I’ll give you a discount of one
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A Foolish‚ Homeless Con-Artist’s Quest to Ease Loneliness as Displayed in Sherman Alexie’s “What You Pawn I Will Redeem” In Sherman Alexie’s “What You Pawn I Will Redeem‚” the protagonist exemplifies how to be a professional homeless con artist‚ and reveals how to use an actual stolen family artifact to prey on the human capacity for compassion. It’s a story in which our protagonist with the same first and last name‚ Jackson Jackson‚ stumbles across a garb made by his grandmother in a local
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Punishment Punishment‚ Witness‚ and dehumanization are common in the world today illustrated in poems such as‚ “Punishment” by Seamus Heaney and “Capital Punishment” by Sherman Alexie. The poems give the world a different perspectives based on the authors viewpoint‚ yet both authors seem to favor punishment. Therefore everyone in their life deserves to be punished based on the authors work or even a witness for one reason or another to speak for something they have done or witness. These authors
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