Catherine Lappas 'The Woman Narrator Of' Yellow Woman

The woman narrator of ‘‘Yellow Woman’’ does not reveal what she is running away from when she leaves her home and family. In fact, she does not seem to know what is wrong with her, or what the importance of the old stories might be in her life. Catherine Lappas explains in an essay excerpted in this volume, that ‘‘Hers is a condition born of cultural dislocation: She is an Indian woman living in a Western world that dismisses all stories as irrelevant.... In her Indian world, however, stories have an ongoing connection to people's lives.’’ Or do they? This woman is constantly longing for her grandfather, the last member of her family to tell and understand the old stories, the old connections. I believe that the narrator of "Yellow Woman''

She recognizes individual trees as tamaracks and willows and cedars and junipers, but she cannot tell what kind of man he is. As they travel to Silva's house she takes in her surroundings in great detail: "I watched the change from the cottonwood trees along the river to the junipers that brushed past us in the foothills, and finally there were only piqons, and when I looked up at the rim of the mountain plateau I could see pine trees growing on the edge.’’ From the corral at his house she can see ‘‘faint mountain images in the distance miles across the vast spread of mesas and valleys and plains. I wondered who was over there to feel the mountain wind on those sheer blue edges—who walks on the pine needles in those blue mountains.'' As the two ride to Marquez she stops looking into the distance because Silva questions her perceptions, but her closeup vision is just as acute:"Only the waxy cactus flowers bloomed in the bright sun, and I saw every color that a cactus blossom can be; the white ones and the red ones were still buds, but the purple and the yellow were blossoms, open full and the most beautiful of all.’’

Silva believes his vision is superior to hers: ‘‘From here I can see the world.’’ He frequently challenges her, telling her that she does not see what she thinks she sees, and does not understand what she thinks she understands. But what he sees is not the

For him, the horses and cattle are commodities: transportation, food, wealth. The woman has a closer relationship, feeling their warmth, listening to their breath just as she does with Silva's. When she returns to Silva's house after her walk, the narrator sees gray squirrels playing in the pines, the horses standing in the corral—and a beef carcass hanging from a tree. Some of the sharpest and most narrowly focused detail occurs in this scene: "Flies buzzed around the clotted blood that hung from the carcass"; "I looked into the bucket full of bloody water with brownandwhite animal hairs floating in it.'' In much of her writing, Silko insists that readers confront their fears of blood and death, and accept the giving up of life as part of the ritual of natural existence. In that regard, Silva is admirable. He does not flinch from what it means to take a life. But Silva again offers only a shadow of what the woman needs. When he lies to the white man he underscores the shallowness of his venture: he has not ‘‘been hunting,’’ as he claims, but only stealing domestic cattle from an enclosed area. He will not even close the circle and eat the flesh he has taken; he is on his way to sell it. He does not fear blood, but he sheds it for commerce, not for