Yellow Woman Silko Summary

An activism that explored the connection between the exploitation of the natural world and women that emerged during the 1980s generated a work by Leslie Marmon Silko, known as “Yellow Woman”, written in 1981. This movement grew among women from the anti-nuclear, environmental, and lesbian-feminist movements. Through the course of Silko’s short story, the connections that exist between female and nature are exposed, and help to further comprehend the narrator’s struggle with identity in a patriarchal society that defines women by way of gender roles, resulting in the ascendency of man over woman. The narrator of “Yellow Woman” is foraging for herself in an attempt to break free from the confinement of the Western patriarchal structures that …show more content…
Over the course of the story, the narrator refers to warmth and food, almost using them as reasons to support her actions. Perhaps her connection to nature allows her to rely on reasonableness to direct her decisions, since her memory is opaque about events preceding to waking up by the river. Her reliance on natural instincts is animal-like, further illuminating the compelling association she feels with nature, and help guide her. Her hunger in the story always seems to direct her back home to her family.
Early in the text when she is hungry, she begins to follow the river from where she had come after having encountered Silva. As Bily states, “Whenever she feels the call of the natural energy of hunger, she turns away from Silva”. The interrelationship between nature and women that is explored in Silko’s, “Yellow Woman”, demonstrates the differentiation of perspective of between males and females. The narrator describes nature as beautiful, and its essence is projected by her response to her surroundings in a genuinely felt, rudimentary manner. The connection between female and nature is known as