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Jackson: An Effective Homeless Man

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One would normally think of poverty as a disease that needs to be eradicated by all means possible; however the opposite is true for Jackson in Sherman Alexie’s, what you pawn, I will redeem. Instead of putting a lot effort to save every single coin he gets so that he can manage to buy back his grandmothers dancing regalia, Jackson chooses to spend it all on alcohol and friends. The little money he gets form people he spends all of it and he returns back to the original situation. Saving enough to get the $999 required is a hard task, but one that can be achieved with proper planning and discipline. His actions is a physical manifestation of the typical Indian poor boy growing up in a foreign country. Instead of focusing on how to make more, …show more content…

Jackson has failed as a students, husband and father. He has no contact with anyone from his past and the friends that he has are few and they tend to drift in and out of his life. “I’ve been homeless for six years now. If there’s such a thing as an effective homeless man, then I suppose I’m effective. Being homeless is probably the only thing I’ve ever been good at (Troyer, 2008). The poverty can be greatly associated with the friends that Jackson keeps. According to the text, according to Alexie (2003), “I wander the streets with a regular crew—my teammates, my defenders, my posse. It is Rose of Sharon, Junior, and me. We matter to each other if we don’t matter to anybody else.” All the money that Jackson makes in is trials to mange to buy the regalia is spend on his friends. The opportunities hurled at Jackson in trying to assist in his endeavor to get the money are all thwarted away by alcohol. “Rose of Sharon, Junior, and I carried our twenty-dollar bill and our five dollars in loose change over to the 7-Eleven and bought three bottles of imagination.” (Fletcher, 2006). This shows that the shopkeeper was quite concerned and wanted to help in any way to have Jackson and his family’s pride in the dance

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