Leslie Marmon Silko
born: 1948
The Yellow Woman
The story seems to be about a woman in search of something other than what she already has. She seems to be fascinated by the legend of Kochininako, Yellow Woman. It was a legend of a powerful woman. And who doesn't want to be a powerful woman? Since this was told to her many times by her grandfather, I believe he put the idea in her head that she is the Yellow Woman and she firmly believed it. So, she set out to be the woman she believed in. I think she wanted to live out the legend as it was told to her, to make it real to her. She used her imagination to play her role of the Yellow Woman and the role of the mountain spirit Ka'tsina was also played out by the man on the beach.
It seems that she falls in and out of character while living out the legend with Ka'tsina. One minute she is in full character believing she is the Yellow Woman and he is Ka'tsina, then the next minute, she is asking him his name, or if he uses the same tricks on other women. It's like she's second guessing herself the whole time of living out the legend.
The author tells us that she was not a woman fleeing from domination, powerlessness, inferior status, vis-a-vis the husband and that those types of forces are not happening. So, I think she was a woman that wanted to go into the depths of her spirituality to experience the legend of the Yellow Woman in the only way that she knew how.
No comments:
Post a Comment