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In the following paragraphs, a general summary and analysis of the short “The Yellow
Woman” by Silko will be provided. The story is about a Native American legend, a woman
known as the Yellow Woman abducted by a mountain spirit called Ka’tsina. It’s a fictional story
that was published in 1974. The story is told in first person and consists of four parts. The number
four is a spiritual number to most Indian Americans, in the story its emphasis can be seen in such
elements as the story consisting of four parts and the hearing of four gunshots in the climax of the
story.
In the introduction, the first part of the story begins with the narrator waking up next to a
river with a stranger. She admires and describes the beauty around her then realizes Silva with
whom she is having an affair. Silva introduces himself and implies that he is the so-called
mountain spirit Ka’tsina and calls the narrator Yellow Woman. The narrator remembers her
beloved grandfather’s stories about these myths and gets lost in her mind. Silva wants to take her
with him to the mountains. She considers leaving but eventually decides to go with him since
what she is experiencing with him correlates with the stories that she deeply values.
The second part of the story, rising action begins with them heading toward the mountains
where the Silva’s house is, and they spend the night together. Yellow Woman is suspected of
Silva since she learns that he is stealing cattle from Texans and Mexican ranchers. She concludes
that he must be Navajo because Pueblos doesn’t steal, Silva responds that he already told her who
he is and therefore denies it. Yellow Woman is afraid that he might hurt her but later she develops
compassion toward him. The next morning, she finds Silva gone and wanders for a while.
Concerned about her family, she considers leaving again and wonders what they think about her
and how they will tell stories about her leaving. Despite her intentions of leaving, she again
decides to stay. When she returns, she finds Silva. He takes a rifle with him, and they leave on
The climax occurs in the third part of the story when they bump into a White Man while
they are riding toward the town. White Man demands to know where Silva got the fresh meat
from and accuses Silva of rustling cattle. Not being able to understand what Silva’s saying, White
Man gets angry, and they get into a fight. Silva tells Yellow Woman to leave and after she leaves
Finally in the last part, the conclusion, Yellow Woman returns to her home. Again, she is
next to the river, thinking about Silva. She feels down that she left him but also, she is still
confused about him. Eventually, when she reaches home, she finds everything the same as she
left. She considers telling her family that she was kidnapped but then changes her mind. She
wishes that her dear grandfather were there to hear this story of hers “… but I was sorry that old
Grandpa wasn’t alive to hear my story because it was the Yellow Woman stories he liked to tell
When it comes to the themes in the story, the first and perhaps the most important one is
the theme of identity. This can be observed through her questioning of whether she is The Yellow
Woman and whether Silva is the Ka’tsina or not throughout the story. Silva never reveals his
identity in the story but so does the narrator. She says, “… I have my own name and I come from
the pueblo on the other side of the mesa.” (Silko 368) but one can never know for sure. This
results in the ambiguity of both of their identities. As time passes, she seems as if she has
completely forgotten this and inhabits Yellow Woman’s identity. In resolution, when Yellow
Woman returns home the mystery about her identity continues yet she seems to have embraced a
more fluid identity. Secondly, other major themes in the story are the concept of liminality -
which could be described as the blurring of boundaries or transcending them- and what is real
and what is myth. The narrator raises the question of whether her own experiences are real or
myth numerous times. Throughout the story, she is in a dream-like state, and she is trying to make Yılmaz 3
meaning of her experiences, and her sense of reality. She doubts their existence and while she
spends time with Silva her questioning of this increases even more. She also seeks confirmation
from outside by hoping that they will encounter someone so that she can believe that Silva is real.
In the article Yellow Woman, Old and New: Oral Tradition and Leslie Marmon Silko's
"Storyteller" Joan Thompson explains these concepts as "Yellow Woman" concerns a young
woman who spends the night with a strange man named Silva whom she meets by the river. He
convinces her to go to his house in the mountains and to leave her husband and baby. By calling
her Yellow Woman, he makes her question her sense of what is real and makes her wish to see
someone she knows so that she "will be certain that he is only a man - some man from nearby -
There are two clear symbols in the story “The Yellow Woman”. The first of them is the
river which serves the purpose of being the navigator of the narrator. The river is an essential
guideline that she follows throughout the events in the story. In the introduction, she wakes up
next to the river. When she walks, she walks alongside the river and when she is away from the
river, she is lost. The river is the element she needs to follow to find Silva and return home.
Another symbol is the mountain which represents a symbol of escapism from reality. One can see
that her sense of reality blurs even more when she is in the mountains. As she makes her way
back home -moving away from the mountains- her sense of reality comes back, meaning she
Yellow Woman” tells the story of a young unnamed Pueblo woman and his encounters with a
mysterious man Silva. The climax occurs when Yellow Woman and Silva encounter The White
Man and the themes of the story revolve around issues such as identity, real vs. myth, and so on. Yılmaz 4
Overall, the story and how the point of view -narration- was portrayed gives the reader a thrilling
reading experience.
Works Cited
Thompson, Joan. “Yellow Woman, Old and New: Oral Tradition and Leslie Marmon Silko’s
