Yellow Woman

The author, Leslie Silko, writes about the salvation of Native American history in the story of "Yellow Woman" with mental imagery and storytelling as they are brought together as one.

I. This short story is about dreams and is one big romantic fairy tale.

a) It is pretty obvious as the story progresses that the woman stays around and longs for the Navajo man because she is attracted to his unknown identity and looks.

b) "But later, while he slept beside me, I touched his face and I had a feeling-the kind of feeling for him that overcame me that morning along the river." (DiYanni 4th Ed. 434.)

II. "Yellow Woman" is a very sexual story and can be considered repulsive at times yet it is very necessary.

a) The young woman in Yellow Woman has sexual encounters with a stranger to relieve herself of her sexual desires that she has been craving her whole life.

b) "...I wanted to go back to him--to kiss him and to touch him..." (DiYanni 4th Ed. 437.) "My thigh clung to his with dampness..." (DiYanni 4th Ed. 431.)

c) "There is the sense that she finds her daily life dull, though perhaps not unhappy, and when a chance encounter turned sexual, she again takes on a subservient role to a male." (http://www.123helpme.com/view.asp?id=19914. Line 14-15.)

III. Is the woman The Yellow Woman? Has she become so mesmerized by the myth that she has created a tall tale about her sexual encounter with an Indian man?

a) Throughout the story, the story of the "Yellow Woman" is referred to (hence, the name of the short story.) In fact, she becomes quite obsessive with the story. Does she try to relive it?

b) "There was a girl living there alone, and she had light hair and eyes and she told them that they could sleep with her. Coyote wanted to be with her all night so he sent Badger into the prairie-dog hole, telling him he thought he saw something in it. As soon as Badger crawled in, Coyote blocked up the entrance with rocks and hurried back to the Yellow Woman." (DiYanni 4th Ed. 432.)

c) "Silko's, main character in "Yellow Woman," asks the question, "Who am I?"