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What You Pawn I Will Redeem Analysis

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What You Pawn I Will Redeem Analysis
I decided to write about Jackson Jackson and his epic Journey in “What you Pawn I will Redeem.” The reason I choose to write this passage because I feel this to be inspiring in some way. I will refer to both literal homelessness, cultural homelessness as a Spokane Indian, and what the title means to me.

Jackson living on the cold wet streets of Seattle notices many things in his journey to desired items. Jackson manages to receive money from people out of pity and they decide to try to help him. In this passage he receives these offering very often. The whole passage revolves around the goal he attempts to accomplish. His goal is to get his grandmothers Regalia that were stolen from his family roughly a decade ago. He found this item in
…show more content…
He started off with five dollars in his pockets. He begins his journey by buying a lottery ticket and wins a large sum of money. After he claims all his earning he decided to go to the bar and buy everyone drinks. Jackson ends up getting drunk but shared his earnings with everyone he knew and didn’t know. He goes back to the Pawn Broker, and the broker asked him how much do you have? Jackson says twenty dollars. A little shy of the two hundred he needed before. The pawnbroker asked Jackson did you work hard for it? Jackson replies with a Yes.

Jackson was curious to why he had given him the Regalia even though he was far from being able to afford it. The pawnbroker’s replies with a statement of because you seemed to really want it. At first Jackson was slightly dumbfounded but later on became very happy.

Jackson’s cultural homelessness seems too irrelevant to most people but I would disagree. I feel that the Spokane Indians like all other Native American tribes are culturally connected to a history of dispossession, forced removal, and lost lands. In this way Jackson’s homelessness resonated throughout the story. It represents not only his material state, but also his psychological and cultural states as

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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,
where
he
"flunked
out
 within
two
semesters,
worked
various
blue-
and
bluer-collar
jobs
for
many
 years,
married
two
or
three
times,
fathered
two
or
three
kids,
and
then
went
 crazy."
Jackson
then
introduces
the
people
he
hangs
out
with
on
the
street,…

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