Karyn O’Sullivan
Ms. DelGrego
English 3 – CP
9/15/11
Tricky Business
Deception is the idea that unifies the ambiguities in the poem Evolution by Sherman
Alexie. The ambiguities include the title its self, the way Buffalo Bill makes his profit off the
Indians, and how Alexie includes body parts in the list of pawned things. Buffalo Bill is unfair
and sneaky in the way he treats the Indians and their culture.
When you think of evolution you usually jump right to human evolution. Human
evolution is a positive process, in which we went from being unintelligent cave people, to people
who walk straight up and make their money off of how smart they are. However the poem is a
negative view of evolution. It talks about the evolution of the disappearance of the Indian culture
into the white culture. “Buffalo Bill opens a pawn shop on the reservation … closes the pawn
shop, paints a new sign over the old calls his venture The Museum of Native American Cultures”
(Alexie 1). The Indians lost their culture when Buffalo Bill opened the museum. It meant that the
Indians had disappeared if they had to be remembered buy a museum that was only created to
bring in a profit, not to inform people of the past. Buffalo Bill sold the Indians tickets to see their
own stuff.
Originally Buffalo Bill looked like a hard working business owner, he gave the Indians
fair prices for their belongings and he treated them nicely, then he goes and changes his business
and charges the Indians for his services as a “museum” curator. “Buffalo Bill takes that for
twenty bucks … charges the Indians five bucks a head to enter” (Alexie 1). Buffalo Bill earned
all his money back from the Indians by enticing them to go to his museum. Buffalo Bill turned
out to be just another white man the Indians couldn’t trust in the end. He only had the interest of
his wallet in mind when he took part in wiping out the Indian culture. To Buffalo Bill the Indians
were nothing more than a business venture, it was not morally wrong to him to walk all over
them.
Buffalo Bill took everything from the Indians and because they were so poor they offered
him everything they had and more. “The Indians pawn their hands, saving the thumbs for last,
they pawn their skeletons, falling endlessly from the skin and when the last Indian has pawned
everything but his heart, Buffalo Bill takes that for twenty bucks” (Alexie 1). The part that
causes the tension is that humans can’t actually pawn their body parts while still being alive. The
body parts are really a symbol for the Indian’s entire worldly being. When they give that up they
are no longer part of this world. Meaning they have nothing and have been demoted to being
nothing. The whites have taken away their culture which is a major part in any way of life,
leaving them alone and uncomforted. The only thing they can do now is conform to the way of
life outside of the reservation, where they are not accepted as members of society.
Evolution is a poem that is seemingly only about how a con artist makes his money.
There is a lot of tension in this poem, it comes in the form of ambiguities mostly. One of the
ambiguities is the title of the poem, it misleads you to what the tone of the poem actually is. Also
the fact that Buffalo Bill turns his pawn shop into a museum leads to some tension. Another
ambiguity is that the poem tells us the Indians pawn off their bodies just for a couple of bucks,
you can’t actually sell your body. By the end of the poem Indian culture seems to be completely
forgotten, or on the way to being forgotten. Buffalo Bill was a sneaky man he ignored the best
interest of the Indians so he could make money off of them.