Most homeless people have come from troubled backgrounds such as abusive family relationships, lack of support, loss of income and many other reasons which have forced them to be become homeless. Becoming homeless has thus lead to them losing their identity in the community and being placed under the stigma of being alcoholics and drug addicts. This lack of identity can be seen in the novel when Link states “You can call me Link” and when he refers to his parents as “Mr and Mrs X”. By making the main characters nameless, and using pseudonyms instead, it reinforces the lack of care society has for homeless people and shows that no one knows who they are and no one cares. Isolation is an extremely harsh and demoralising experience to live through.
The couple is revealed to be at a rather old age, “At the time of his birth…now they were quite old.” Their son’s illness has put a huge financial burden on the little family – the father used to be a successful businessman, but is now “wholly dependent on his brother Isaac”. The mother’s dressing is a symbol of their financial difficulties – she wore “cheap black dresses”. Poverty is another aspect of their background that encourages readers to pity the family. The entire story is based on symbols. The writer uses metaphors to create a sense of hopelessness in escaping from the hardship the family was in.
Conflict Brian tries to get used to Amanda’s absence and continue to his life after his girlfriend is murdered only a few houses down from him. However, he can’t cope it because of questioning the justice system and thinking the killer is someone else with a
LITERARY ANALYSIS “WHAT YOU PAWN I WILL REDEEM” Sherman Alexie´s story, “What you pawn I will redeem”, tells an important part of Jackson Jackson´s life, a middle-age Native American alcoholic man who wanders the streets of Seattle. One day, he walks by a pawn shop and sees an old powwow-dance regalia that belonged to his dead grandmother hanging in the window for sale. Jackson tells the pawnbroker that the regalia had been stolen and his “family has been searching for it ever since” (Alexie, 2006, p 14), so the pawnbroker says he would sell it back to Jackson for a thousand dollars but he would only have 24 hours to get the money. So Jackson sets out on his quest with the main objective of getting his grandmother’s regalia back. However he encounters many situations where after making a few dollars and feeling a step closer to his objective, he continues to spend it on nonsense
A man without a place to call home is lost. I could not imagine roaming the streets or finding a place to keep warm at night. The homeless population is made up of various people from all walks of life. For instance people who’ve been laid off because of the economy or men and women whose monthly income make it impossible to afford a place to live or people who live below the poverty line. The most shocking of all to me was to find out that veterans of the armed forces (like myself), make up some of 23 percent of the homeless population.
Being homeless means living in extreme poverty. Describing the harshness of homelessness writers Scott & Sturk (2008) assert, “when the thermostat dips below -35, he will swallow his pride and come in from the cold. He walks many miles to reach prime-picking territory and, if it’s hot, he scours the dumpsters at night” (p. 21). In order to address homelessness there will be two parts to this essay. Firstly, a description of homelessness in Canada, listing reasons why there is a problem in our country involving; families, First Nations peoples, women, and youth.
Boyle disproves the notion of the “American Dream” by contrasting two couples and using symbolisms such as the coyote, walls, and America Rincon (one of the main characters). Boyle starts the novel with a crash; crashing of the poor who desperately seek the “American Dream” and the rich who desperately try to protect his “American Dream”. The perpetrator is Delaney Mossbacher, a “liberal-humanist” living in the secured estate of Arroyo Blanco with his successful realtor wife and son. The victim of the crash is Candido Rincon, an illegal immigrant living in a canyon in proximity to Arroyo Blanco with his seventeen-year-old pregnant wife, America. As a result of the crash, these two couples become resentful of each other’s stereotypes.
Likewise, the hardships Tom had to endure as a child toughened his soul and sharpened his mind. Abandoned by his alcoholic father, Tom lived in “a miserable tworoom tenement” (Anderson 650) with his mom and siblings. The situation went from bad to worse when his mother passed away, leaving her little children uncared for. Tom, who was just 10 years old at that time, forced himself to overcome grief and to hold himself together for the sake of his siblings. He even shoved his father off in the funeral of his mother and worked arduously to fend for his family.
Walt’s neighborhood has been decimated by the economic downturn, particularly with the fall of his beloved Ford factory. As a result, much of the familiarity he once knew is gone, replaced with an influx of immigrants to his great disdain. Now many of his neighbors are the Hmong, Asian peoples from the areas of Laos, Thailand and China. Gang activity dominates the streets accelerating his already racist nature but his cantankerous character will never permit him to leave his home of so long. Fortunately for Walt, a series of events unfolds in the neighborhood causing him to take action.
He finds an apartment advertisement with a negotiable rent, but after being bullied he is forced to take the apartment for a high price for 2 weeks leaving him with only 2/3 of his money. With only £9, Link is thrown out if the apartment, jobless and depressed. On the streets, he struggled facing verbal abuse, rubbery, very cold weather and nowhere to sleep. On a small doorway, Link meets a homeless boy, Ginger, whom helps him survive on the street. Shelter, an army expert, discharged after 29 years due to his mental health grounds is now in the picture.