Reading Notes A - Week 15 : Yellow Woman

Leslie Marmon Silko: Yellow Woman (1029-136)

Themes:
The ideas of -
- Past and tradition: The yellow woman was a story that her gandfather told to keep (presumably) the girls out of trouble.
- Pleasure, love, longing: She allows Silva to be intimate with her and submits rather than fighting. She talks about his strength and that he had the power to hur her if he wanted to. But he did not. She  also addresses wanting to touch his body. There is a conflict between passion and love. Assuming she loves her child, her passion seems to rule her thoughts and she justifies leaving her child to be raised by her mother and for her husband to move on without her.
- Conflict of values and duty: She has a responsibility as a daughter, mother, and wife, but negates this under the seemingly false pretense of abduction. I do not see Silva's actions as an abduction but rather as a "bad boy" persona where Yellow Woman falls pray to. She was able to leave her duties and project herself in the role of a morbid fairy tale

Characters
- Silva: Rebel, criminal, possible rapist. His race is unknown, he is a roaming nobody. He lives in poverty by the account of his house. He was possibly violent as the gun shots that rang out would suggest. However He may be made out to be much worse than he is. Maybe his encounter with Yellow Woman was completely consensual.   
- Fat white man - rancher who finds Silva and "Yellow Woman" as they make their way to sell the meat from the stole cow he had killed.
- Yellow Woman - "Yellow Woman"'s grandfather told stories about how the yellow woman would be kidnapped and how terrible misfortunes would fall on her. The term Yellow Woman is used as a cautionary tale to women in the village to be fearful of strangers and should not be left alone or wonder at night.
- "Yellow Woman" - Seemed to enjoy playing the victim. She has many opportunities to leave but chooses to stay with Silva, who has presumably raped and abducted her. She goes through what her family may be thinking or feeling as she did not return. But still she stays with Silva. It was only at the point where things became dangerous with another person that she finally leaves. This could have been due to her possibly being implicated in a murder or in theft. Over all she seems very selfish. She doesn't really seem to care about Silva, her family, or her own child and husband. She even invents the story of what happened rather than saying how things were.