Lollaby Silko Analysis

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“Lullaby” is one of Leslie Marmon Silko’s most noted pieces out of her collection of short stories in her book “Storyteller.” In this short story, it starts off with an old woman named Ayah, who is reminiscing on life experiences. Silko writes the story as if it were told from a storyteller, just as the Natives shared stories amongst each other in order to heal and transform the experience of loss in both personal and culture. (Taibl) With storytelling, Silko includes Native American culture, family relations, and cultural oppression through symbolism- in this emotional short story.
“Lullaby” is written in a third-person restricted point of view. (Novel Summarires Analysis RSS) .The main character, Ayah is not the one telling the story. The
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Ayah reminisces about watching her mother weave her green army blanket and her grandmother giving her wooden combs to pull twigs and burrs from the raw wool. She remembered watching her grandmother spinning yarn around a cedar spindle and her mother dying the yarn by boiling them in berries, flower petals, and herbs. (Silko) Ayah grew up with experiencing and having memories of her culture unlike her children who were taken away from her by white doctors. In Taibl’s analysis of “Lullaby” she states, “Through Ayah’s progression of memories, readers experience stories as self-renewing acts of imagination, designed to keep cultures and identities from the tragic fate of being lost to memory.” (Taibl). Taibl would be correct because Ayah’s children were taken from her as young children, they do not remember anything of their culture when they return to visit their mother. They do not even remember their native language. Unlike Ayah, they will not have memories of their childhood growing up as Native American Indians and have native traditions to teach their children simply because they forgot about their heritage. “Lullaby” shows readers the power of memory and how it is important. The symbolism of Ayah’s children coming to visit and not remember symbolizes how memories keep people tied to their roots and heritage as well as remind them of who they really

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