Cash Stillwater's stint in Jackson Hole is another way the novel addresses culture clash. His past "get rich quick" attitude is in a way a product of white television. As soon as he tells Alice how he ran away to Wyoming, because he thought "being close to good times is like having good times," Alice thinks of Harland, her T.V.-loving second husband. The T.V. indeed offers a way of being close to good times; it provides a kind of virtual world, in which a person can experience something vicariously without ever having to live it. This kind of illusion is the same that drove Cash to a ritzy tourist town, where money and the illusion of Indian culture ran rampant. Indeed, this environment only brought him more pain and suffering. Mr. Crittendon's suicide illustrates the point further. A man worth a million dollars self-destructed when he felt that Native American culture had no other value in American life other than being marketed as a commodity.
