“You knew you were abnormal- the way the nasty ones were too nasty and the nice ones too nice. The old white women who muttered and glared at him, the black men who shook their heads at you, the black women whose pitiful eyes bemoaned your lack of self-esteem, your self-loathing. Or the black women who smiled swift, secret solidarity smiles, the black men who tried too hard to forgive you, saying a too obvious hi to him, the white woman who said “what a good looking pair” too brightly, too loudly, as though to prove their own tolerance to themselves.”

The people around the narrator are suspicious and uncomfortable with their relationship. They seem to resent to the pairing of a black woman and white man. It is seemed odd yet none of these people have the audacity to outright reject this pairing. This quotation proves that although legally the segregation of races may be illegal, we still continue to think and operate un-cohesively.

1. “His father’s chest was broad and, although he already spat the tubercular blood that would write the end of his story, he was still a strong man. It would take him many years to die. In those years, the father would tell the boy, who had forgotten this part entirely, that at first when he talked about the shadows the father thought he’d been visited by manidoog. But then, as the boy described the shapes, his father had understood that they were not spirits.”

2.This passage to me is foreshadowing what will happen to the son as well as comparing and contrasting them.The first thing they talk about was how strong his father was.and then talk about how long it would take for his father to die.When he becomes a father he goes through the same thing his father does however does not break as easily.The father only weakens when he physically weakens and he finally tells his son what he believed to be the truth after years if holding it in.The son however is in the same situation and he becomes a drunk and beats his kids.I don’t think this was random there’s too much of a difference in how they react for it to be anything but a comparison between them.

3.I believe that the whole story is about many things.This comparison of weak and strong is also else where in the book.The husband tried to love his wife even though she had a baby with another guy,the wife on the other hand could not get the other guy out of her head and as a result could not appreciate her husband.The daughter more than likely saved her mothers life by jumping to the wolves which takes a certain strength she will die knowing that she did something good,the father knows he tried to love his wife and that she acted selfishly and tore apart their family and as a result their daughter that she wanted so badly died and the mother has to deal with this for the rest of her life if shes still alive.
I think there is an under lying theme of using strength for good and being rewarded in some way.

4.This idea can be found in many passages an books.One of my favorites is the battles that batman and joker have.Batman could easily kill joker if he wanted too.However batman just smashes his plans time and time again and sends him to jail.But why does batman feel as if killing a killer would be wrong? batman says that “Killing a killer does nothing but increase the number of killers in the world.” So it can be said that batman’ reward is being better than those he stops and keeps his peace of mind.

When does the narrator create the narrate–that is, where is the “you” addressed, and who is that you that he builds?

(Late post, I apologize)

The narrator creates this relationship/ barrier with the reader by addressing the readers as “you” especially in the beginning of the story. Jackson Jackson in the beginning of the story states “I’m not going to tell you my particular reasons for being homeless, because it’s my secret story, and Indians have to work hard to keep secrets from hungry white folks,” this atomically puts this barrier between the reader and the narrator.  The reader is portrayed as a distant person and as a person who will take advantage of the secret and harm him and his tribe. He starts by building this bad picture of the reader and that we are “hungry white folks” who is looking to harm the Indians. He continues to build this ungrateful and vicious view towards the readers by stating “Maybe you don’t understand the value of a clean bathroom, but I do,” in other words we are ungrateful for things that we feel are common however is a luxury to others and that we won’t ever understand what a clean bathroom is like because he feels that we don’t come across dirty or unclean restrooms. Again he builds this barrier between the reader and himself that the reader will not understand.  In other words its like, I’m just telling you but I don’t expect you to understand how I feel about it. He further develops this barrier by stating “We’re common and boring, and you walk right on by us, with maybe a look of anger or disgust or even sadness at the terrible fate of the noble savage,” Jackson mentions “you” referring to us the reader and says how we see homeless people often and not only do we not care about them but many times we make faces towards them. Sometimes faces that show our anger towards them and sometimes our sympathy towards them.  He makes it clear that we, the reader are these vicious evil people who are not trustworthy, not grateful and are bad guys. We can maybe better understand this by the way many of us see corporate workers and how their ungrateful and corrupt is kind of how the narrator portrays us the reader as.  Jackson builds this image of “you” as a corrupt person.

Where is there humor? to what end?

(For starters, sorry for my late posting)

There is humor present throughout the course of Sherman Alexie’s story “What You Pawn I Will Redeem”, seen through dialog, character’s actions, and even the main character’s name, Jackson Jackson. I believe humor is used as a tool to lighten an otherwise grim situation. For instance in the very beginning the narrator, Jackson Jackson, describes himself as trustworthy after saying he has had two or three wives and two or three kids. Which is ironic, how can someone be considered trustworthy when they do not even know how many children they have fathered. Also he reached the conclusion that he was trustworthy because store owners allow him to use their restrooms. Jackson’s actions are humorous as well because he was given twenty four hours to come up with nine hundred and ninety nine dollars to buy back his grandmother’s regalia that was stolen years prior, from a pawn shop owner. He already had five dollars from begging on the street and the shop owner gave him a twenty dollar head start, Jackson’s first thought was to go to a seven eleven with his fellow homeless friends buy “three bottles of imagination”, and get drunk in an alley. I feel that the humor is essential in this story because a person’s life is full of very traumatic and difficult moments some more than others, this narrator is of Native American decent, a marginalized group of people who have had their heritage taken from them, and many live on reservations. And Jackson specifically is unemployed and homeless. Regardless of this he does not want the audience to feel sorry for him, Jackson jokes about everything in his life and will not give negative aspects of it a second thought like when Junior left. He looks at the positive side of his life and only wants to live life to the fullest. Not starting confrontation with the pawn shop owner for selling his stolen grandmother’s regalia. And sharing what little money he has with others, giving a twenty to the cashier, and buying shots for everyone in the bar.