Yellow Woman

“Yellow Woman”
Author	Leslie Marmon Silko
Country	United States
Language	English
Published in	The Man to Send Rain Clouds: Contemporary Stories by American Indians
Publication type	Anthology
Publication date	1874

"Yellow Woman" is a short story by Leslie Marmon Silko, originally published in the 1974 anthology The Man to Send Rain Clouds: Contemporary Stories by American Indians.

Summary

An unnamed woman has a sexual encounter with a man that lasts several days despite her having a husband and child.

Characters

Yellow Woman

Yellow Woman is a female who leaves her family to have a brief sexual encounter with a Navajo man. Yellow Woman is not her real name. She has been kidnapped by a stranger when she was near the river.

Silva

Silva is the Navajo man that Yellow Woman runs away with for a brief time. The story leads you to believe he is a cattle thief and maybe even a murderer. Silva is a man who has kidnapped the woman.

Grandfather

Grandfather is just a memory to Yellow Woman now because he is dead. He told her all the stories about Yellow Woman.

The Rancher

The Rancher is a fat white man who has a sour smell to him. He and his people have been looking for Silva for a long time because he's a thief who rustles their cattle for the meat.

Themes

• Traditional native values versus contemporary American values.

• The roles of wife and mother at odds with desire.

Works Cited

• Fajardo-Acosta, Fidel (2002). "Yellow Woman". Dr. Fidel Fajardo-Acosta's World Literature Website. Retrieved 2021-09-01. Overview of themes and study questions.
• Silko, Leslie Marmon (2002). Yellow Woman. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall. pp. 187–193].