Wealth is not equally distributed and hard work can one day earn the kids great things In the two stories, Jackson and Sylvia both have something that symbolizes something that very important to them. Since they have trouble with money, they cannot afford the item that has great importance to them. No matter how hard they work to earn the money to pay for the item, it just wont be enough. Stories use symbols to make the writing unforgettable, it gives the meaning to the story. In both the short stories What You Pawn I Will Redeem by Sherman Alexie and The Lesson by Toni Cade Bambara, have many symbols to represent the ideas. Each story has a reason for continuing. In What You Pawn I Will Redeem, Jackson, a homeless man misses his family dreadfully but he has nothing to remember they by until he discovered his grandmothers powwow regalia. That regalia gave him the reason to work as hard as he can to earn money to buy it back from the pawn shop owner, who said that he wou
ld have to pay $000 for it. In the short story, The Lesson the kids tutor brings them to a toy story far away from their neighborhood. All the toys there are way too expensive to actually be played with, Sylvia really wants the toy boat, but there is no way she could ever afford it. She says that she will work as long as it takes to make enough money to buy the toy boat. Like Jackson in What You Pawn I Will Redeem, Sylvia wants something that is way too expensive but no matter how much money Jackson and Sylvia both works to earn money there is no way that they could save up the amount they need because they need money to buy food and water or in Jacksons case, waste it all the money on alcohol. These items, the regalia, and the toy boat might mean something really important to Jackson and Sylvia but to someone else, they dont mean anything. Throughout both stories, the readers learn that wealth is not equally distributed and hard work can one day earn them great things.