International Journal of Language & Literature

Messy Muddles: Capitalist and Non-Capitalist Encounters in Sherman Alexie’s “What You Pawn I will Redeem”
Abdel Karim Tawfiq Daragmeh

Abstract
The present study explores the potential relevance and/or irrelevance of capitalist conceptual frames to the subaltern, pre-industrial cultures as marked out by the prominent US writer Sherman Alexie in his famous story ―What You Pawn I will Redeem‖. More specifically, the study highlights one particular deconstructive scheme used by writers from the periphery to protest the imposition of capitalist culture principles on native populations. To situate the discussion more broadly in post-colonial theory, the study traces uses of the same self-whipping strategy elsewhere in the post-colonial tradition where the capitalist and non-capitalist cultures do occupy the same temporal and physical space. The article consistently demonstrates that these post-colonial voices were not in fact cursing themselves or their own populations, but they were rather protesting malignant interventions in the natural growth of the native cultures.

Full Text: PDF      DOI: 10.15640/ijll.v6n2a12