DefinePK

Abstract

The current work is a feminist critique of Sherman Alexie’s short story titled “What You Pawn I Will Redeem”. The paper is a qualitative descriptive paper in nature and uses textual analysis and close reading approaches. This research paper aims to analyse how the story narrates the aspects of gendered cultural representation, colonialism, and oppression using feminist and Indigenous feminism theories. The work draws attention to indigenous male and female roles depicted in the narrative as a way of asserting that indigenous genders were socially constructed in relation to the effects of colonialism and traditional cultural values. The findings of this study therefore add to the knowledge about gender and Indigenous cultural identity in Indigenous literature as informed by feminist and Indigenous feminist theories, as well as extend the understanding of the effects of colonization on Indigenous gender relations. Overall, this research paper contributes to the current literature on cultural identity and gender in Indigenous peoples from the colonial perspective with historical trauma. This work endeavors itself to try and complement the existing literature in an effort to offer a detailed account of gender from Alexie’s work.