Analysis Paper 1: Yellow Woman Leslie Marmon Silko was born in 1948, and was a part of the Laguna Pueblo Tribe (Wiget 499). In 1981 Silko published her short story “Yellow Woman” in her book Storyteller, which provides readers with a collection of her stories and poems (Wiget 506). “Native American Literature in North America has been in a self-declared state of renaissance since 1969. This rebirth is an attempt to recover traditions, beliefs, and even languages that were lost, suppressed, or marginalized during a centuries-long history that ended in the 19th century” (Henderson 1). Silko has been at the forefront of this recovery, and has a feel for this phenomenon since she was born of experience and can provide pathways to Pueblo tradition as a primary source (Henderson 2; Henderson 7; Henderson 9). “Yellow Woman” is a short story written about a young woman’s brief romantic adventure with a mysterious stranger Silva ("Reading across Genres.” 36-43). It describes “sexual intimacy that is not just connection to another human being but is also a transgressive and augmentive relationship to an organically developing tradition [which is] dramatized in the short story” (Wiget 505). It is based off the Pueblo tale of the Ka’tsina spirit and Yellow Woman. Silko is re-telling a traditional story from the Pueblo perspective that she originally heard from her Grandfather who is now deceased. She even mentioned to Silva in her fictional story the original tale her grandfather told her about how “Yellow Women went away with the spirit from the north and lived with him and his relatives. She was gone for a long time, but then one day she came back and she brought twin boys” ("Reading across Genres.” 37). She uses culturally specific symbolic interaction (Wiget 501). She wrote it in first person narration, where the narrator is a part of the story as “I” and “we” and is the Yellow Woman in the story (“Reading Short Fiction.” 76). Yellow Woman is a round character who has a range of emotional responses, who grows, and who changes ("Reading across Genres.” 36-43). The major characters in the story are Yellow Woman and Silva, while the minor characters in the story are Yellow Woman’s family (mother, grandmother, husband, and baby) (“Reading Short Fiction.” 80). The story takes place north of the Pueblo boundaries in the Mountains over a two day period ("Reading across Genres.” 39). In this story she is part of the old world through incorporation of past traditional tale, and also a part of the new world through the new story that will emerge from her “kidnapping.” Silko uses three literary writing styles in her short story “Yellow Woman” – realism, magic realism, and metafiction. Realism is “a style of art or literature that shows or describes people and things as they are in real life (“Realism.” 1).” Magic Realism is “a literary genre or style associated especially with a later America that incorporates fantasy or mythical elements into otherwise realistic fiction (“Magic Realism.” 1).” Metafiction is “fiction which refers to or takes as its subject fictional writing and its conventions (“Metafiction.” 1).” In other words I believe metafiction questions fiction
