Sherman Alexie emphasizes historical elements of western industrial expansion by encompassing them in a modern twist of Native American Culture in his poem, “Evolution.” The poem displays two main shifts of tension that move the plot into a satirical understanding of historical truth about the Native American’s loss of cultural values through a business strategy used by Buffalo Bill. By Bill opening a pawnshop, Alexie uses language to link the modern world of the poem to their historical happenings and tell a story within a story of the Native Americans loss of culture. With the satirical message of industrial expansion, Buffalo Bill and his relationship with the Native Americans are expressed in modern day stereotypes along with their historical background.

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    Alexie references the stereotypical existence of modern day Indian reservations and bases the plot of “Evolution” from that perspective. Modern reservations are known to be low— poverty level— income driven with many of its residents struggling with alcoholism and drug abuse. Many cultural trinkets and artifacts may be found on the reservations, which is understandable because of the Native American pride of their culture and traditions. On the other hand, Buffalo Bill is known for the rising success of the Wild West shows that swept across the western territories of the country beginning early in the 1880’s. It wasn’t long before his shows grew with popularity and his tours began to expand all over the country and even over seas. Bill’s Wild West shows employed a variety of talented individuals including Annie Oakley, James Butler Hickok, and Native Americans such as Sitting Bull. Buffalo Bill was one of the most famous and successful entrepreneurs of the entertainment market of the time, and Alexie demonstrates how he succeeded in “Evolution.”

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    “Evolution” opens with Buffalo Bill opening a pawn shop across the street from a liquor store on an Indian reservation, which shows the first step of Bill’s business plan. Using the modern stereotype of the reservation to his advantage, Bill opens the shop in a location that appeals most to his targeted audience. Location is one of the most important details to consider when opening a business. Bill also makes the hours of operation—“24 hours a day, 7 days a week”— fully accessible to his customer bases for their convenience. A pawn shop is understood, especially in the context of “Evolution”, to be a symbol for devaluing items and stripping them of their meaning to turn a profit. The pawn shop plays a key role in moving the poem’s plot forward and links it to the Native American culture that was devalued historically.  The first stanza acknowledges Bill’s strategy for appealing to his audience; however, it also satirizes the belittlement of the Native American culture through the plotting of industrial growth.

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    The first two lines of the second stanza express the desperation of the Native Americans as they trade every item they can spare— “and the Indians come running in with jewelry, television sets, a VCR, a full- length beaded buckskin outfit…” Alexie expands further on Bill’s strategy to ensnare the Native Americans as his victims to the pawnshop to satisfy their cravings. The third line in the stanza represents a shift in tension, which leads to the true historical satire of the endangerment of a culture. The Native Americans begin to pawn more than just material items such as a TV or VCR. “A full-length beaded buckskin outfit it took Inez Muse 12 years to finish.” As displayed in the third line, value begins to lose meaning and purpose in the lives of the desperate Native Americans by the pawning of the buckskin outfit that have value in the time it took Muse to make. The outfit is the first symbol of the loss of their culture, which satirizes the beginning of expansion to the modern world.

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    The sixth line of “Evolution” is the first major shift that takes place in poem, and symbolizes a new plot change displayed by Buffalo Bill. Bill is lacking the fundamental element that is necessary for a business to be successful— the reselling of the pawned items to turn a profit. Bill’s new venture is, “Catalogued and filed in a storage room.” The outfit is the last material item mentioned in the poem, which leads the Native Americans to begin to pawn objects of their own being. Without the major shift, Buffalo Bill’s strategy would have never played to his advantage. However, when hands and skin become pawned, the Native American’s consequences play a vital role to the historical plot line of being employed by Bill. By infusing the modern social order of reservations with historical facts, it is clear that the third stanza satirizes the beginning of the Native American loss of culture, which explains how Bill employed them in the 1880’s.

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    “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.” The language used in the fourth stanza has heavy imagery that can be paralleled to the historical and modern depression of Native American culture, and also displays the second shift in tense in the last line. Native Americans had a prosperous lifestyle and a free will with the land at their fingertips. The expansion of modern industry disrupted their culture and drove them to small quantities of territory called reservations. By taking the last heart of the last Indian, Buffalo Bill drove his customers into nothing. Without their lives and culture, what are they? “Buffalo Bill takes that for twenty bucks”— is the shift that moves Bill’s business plan into a new direction. Bill was a very strong businessman and found investments by staying smart. He realized that eventually the Native Americans would have nothing left to offer for the pawn shop, so in order to secure his profit, he shifted the original plot of his business and turned it into, ”The museum of native american cultures.”

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    By changing the shop to a museum, Bill is able to stay successful for a longer time and opens his customer base to a new range of demographics, just like his famous Wild West shows. The museum is a key element to the last stanza and to the poem as a whole because of its parallelism to the historical events of Bill’s entertainment success. A museum’s purpose is to entertain and preserve history. The Wild West shows were not only entertainment, but also preserved the culture of the expansion of western industry with Native Americans and their traditions. The action of the museum supports Bill’s previous intentions for categorizing the artifacts being pawned to preserve what they were as he takes over their heritage by employing the Native Americans in his shows. Equality was not always a subject of interest to Bill when Native Americans were involved. Buffalo Bill, “charges the Indians five bucks a head to enter” his museum. The last line of the poem satirically references the belittlement of the Native American culture and how — as employed (owned) under Buffalo Bill— they were mocked by their losses every day.

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    The two shifts in “Evolution” are the main indicators to the satirical references that Sherman Alexie expresses. They move the plot of the poem forward with the ongoing collaboration of historical elements and key symbols that are placed according to the shifts. All in all, the poem satirizes the loss of the Native American culture and traditions (as represented by the pawn shop), and promotes the gain of industrial expansions (symbolized by the museum) by the entrepreneurial strategy of Buffalo Bill. “Evolution” is titled appropriately because the poem is the evolution of a modern world shown through satirical elements. Alexie’s poem is engrossed with historically intertwining modern stereotypes with a satirical representation of the plot.