What You Pawn I Will Redeem

Use these links to supplement and complement students’ reading of the work and to increase their overall enjoyment of literature. Challenge them to discern parallel themes, engage through visual and aural stimuli, and delve deeper into the thematic possibilities presented by the title.

Recommended Texts for Pairing

Kiss of the Fur Queen by Tomson Highway

• 1998 novel based partly on the experiences of Canadian Cree writer Highway and his brother
• connects to themes of vanishing Indigenous peoples and culture and the possibility of rebirth and redemption
• Consider also the function of the female or feminine in each work (i.e., Jackson’s grandmother and the different guises of the Fur Queen).

“How to Write the Great American Indian Novel” by Sherman Alexie

• 1996 poem first printed in The Summer of Black Widows
• connects to the theme of vanishing Native American peoples and cultures
• Compare the use of Indigenous stereotypes to those in “What You Pawn I Will Redeem.”

“The value of kindness at work”

• 2021 TED Talk by James Rhee (video and transcript)
• connects to the theme of different visions of economy
• Discuss Rhee’s contention that kindness is an “asset” in relation to Alexie’s depiction of value in “What You Pawn I Will Redeem.”

“The Gift of the Magi” by O. Henry

• short story first published in 1905
• connects to the theme of different visions of economy
• Compare the value of the two ultimately useless gifts the husband and wife buy for one another with the value of Jackson’s “work” in “What You Pawn I Will Redeem.”

“Everyday Use” by Alice Walker

• 1973 short story first published in her collection In Love and Trouble
• Compare Walker’s characters’ relationship to their heritage with Jackson’s, especially as embodied by the quilts and regalia, respectively.

Sydney Carton’s closing monologue from A Tale of Two Cities

• from Charles Dickens’s 1859 novel; begin reading at “They said of him, about the city that night...”
• Bearing in mind that Carton, like Jackson, struggles with purposelessness and alcoholism throughout the novel, compare and contrast each work’s depiction of redemption.

Other Student Resources

Pictures of Spokane ceremonial dress

• collection from the Plateau Peoples’ Web Portal Project

“Sherman Alexie on Living Outside Borders”

• 2013 interview with Bill Moyers covering a range of topics from mental illness to group identification connects to the theme of vanishing Native American peoples and cultures