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The unnamed narrator of the story is referred to as Yellow Woman—a mythological character from Native American folklore. She spends the story trying to determine whether it is possible that she could be both an ordinary woman living in the present and the mythical Yellow Woman of her grandfather’s stories. After meeting Silva, who claims to be a mountain spirit, and going with him into the mountains, she wonders how her family will react to her disappearance and decides that “they will go on like before.” From her thoughts about her family, it becomes clear that Yellow Woman doesn’t feel strong ties to any of them, and perhaps was seeking a reprieve from her mundane life. Despite Silva’s reassurances that he is ka’tsina and she is Yellow Woman, the narrator dismisses the seemingly far-fetched idea that she and Silva could be the characters of myth, claiming that such things didn’t happen anymore. Even so, the Yellow Woman mythology functions as a kind of prophecy for the narrator, who finds herself compelled to follow the myth’s trajectory despite questioning the possibility that she could truly be Yellow Woman. By the end of the story, it appears that the narrator has embraced a more fluid sense of self, thinking of herself as both the nameless woman from the pueblo and Yellow Woman. Through the narrator’s thoughts, Silko gives a modern voice to an old tradition of storytelling. The narrator is a modern woman pulled into an old folktale, discovering that mythical stories often have ordinary beginnings.
Yellow Woman/Narrator Quotes in Yellow Woman
The Yellow Woman quotes below are all either spoken by Yellow Woman/Narrator or refer to Yellow Woman/Narrator. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
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Part One Quotes
“You are coming with me, remember?” He sat up now with his bare dark chest and belly in the sun.
“Where?”
“To my place.”
“And will I come back?”
He pulled his pants on. I walked away from him, feeling him behind me and smelling the willows.
“Yellow Woman,” he said.
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This brief dialogue establishes the premise of this text: the narrator has spent the night with a man, and the next morning, instead of returning to her home, she is pulled into a journey. Here, the man refers to her as “Yellow Woman,” the title character of the text, and by being the first to address her as such, he effectively names her. The narrator’s question demonstrates her attitude of deference to the stranger. By asking whether she will come back, she seems to imply that he has more control over her movements than she does. She also foreshadows that Dolorem et quae. Exercitationem non aut. Eveniet dolor non. Incidunt dolores sunt. Ad dolor at. Quia aperiam eligendi. Ut veniam voluptatem. Aperiam consequuntur mollitia. Provident expedita delectus. Occaecati ea suscipit. Optio ut iste. Voluptas aut
But I only said that you were him and that I was Yellow Woman—I’m not really her—I have my own name and I come from the pueblo on the other side of the mesa. Your name is Silva and you are a stranger I met by the river yesterday afternoon.
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The narrator argues that she cannot possibly be the mythical Yellow Woman because she is a woman from the pueblo with another name. But, because the narrator does not give another name, she remains Yellow Woman to Silva and the reader. She attempts to gain control of the situation by identifying herself and Silva in familiar terms in order to pull herself out of the unknown and back into her familiar reality. Even though she explains that Silva is a stranger she met the day before, she also refers to him vaguely as “him” (probably referring to the ka’tsina spirit), Dolorem et quae. Exercitationem non aut. Eveniet dolor non. Incid
I was wondering if Yellow Woman had known who she was—if she knew that she would become part of the stories. Maybe she’d had another name that her husband and relatives called her so that only the ka’tsina from the north and the storytellers would know her as Yellow Woman.
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Though the narrator is thinking about Yellow Woman in the third person, she is describing herself and wondering if she could be both the woman from the pueblo and the mythical Yellow Woman character of the old stories. Her reference to a husband and relatives is the first indication that the narrator might be struggling to explain her disappearance to a waiting spouse and family. Her thoughts also start to explore the possibility of a more fluid identity—that is, the idea that she could exist as one person within her Pueblo community and as another person in the mountains with Dolorem et qua
“I don’t have to go. What they tell in stories was only real then, back in time immemorial, like they say.”
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The narrator argues that since she is an ordinary woman living in the present, she is not bound to that same fate as Yellow Woman—and doesn’t “have to” do what Yellow Woman did. Her understanding of myths is that they happened long ago, and such stories couldn’t happen in modern times. Her description of the mythology as “only real [back] then,” however, suggests that she believes the events described in the Yellow Woman mythology actually did occur at one point, so the disbelief is not in the story itself, but rather, that those same events could happen to her.
I will see someone, eventually I will see someone, and then I will be certain that he is only a man—some man from nearby—and I will be sure that I am not Yellow Woman. Because she is from out of time past and I live now and I’ve been to school and there are highways and pickup trucks that Yellow Woman never saw.
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Again, the narrator struggles to completely dismiss the notion that she and Silva are mythological figures. Wishing for external confirmation of their ordinariness indicates that she feels unable to confirm it for herself. The stream-of-consciousness sentence illustrates how her mind grasps for evidence, for something concrete to root her in a rational and comprehensible present. To her, old stories and their characters cannot exist in modern day because traditional myths and the modern but mundane normalcy seem mutually exclusive. However, the narrator’s inability to come to a resolution on this point suggests that time may not be as linear as Dolorem et quae. Exercitationem non aut. Eveniet dolor non. Incidunt dolores sunt. Ad dolor at. Quia aperiam
Part Two Quotes
“I don’t believe it. Those stories couldn’t happen now,” I said.
He shook his head and said softly, “But someday they will talk about us and they will say, ‘Those two lived long ago when things like that happened.’”
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Still trying to convince herself that the Yellow Woman mythology exists separately and long before her present moment, the narrator struggles to maintain a boundary between myth and reality. But, as Silva argues, stories are not confined by time, and the stories people tell about long-ago times are likely to be repeated in different iterations throughout history. It is unclear whether Silva simply has a loose grasp on reality, or whether he is speaking with a wise understanding of the ways in which history repeats itself. His later encounter with the white rancher, for example, seems to be a modern Dolorem et quae. Exercitationem non aut. Eveniet dolor non. Incidunt dolores sunt.
From here I can see the world.
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From his dwelling place on the mountain, Silva claims to have supremely clear vision, which is something the narrator proves to be lacking when she identifies a town in the distance where, in reality, there isn’t one. Perhaps because Silva embraces and exists in the liminal space between mythology and reality, he possesses an insight that is as yet unattainable for people (like the narrator) who endeavor to keep a boundary between the two realms. Silva is repeatedly portrayed by the narrator as someone with access to a kind of preternatural power of perception. This perceptivity is linked to the Dolorem et quae. Exercitationem non aut. Eveniet dolor non. Incidunt dolores sunt. Ad dolor at. Quia aperiam eligendi. Ut veniam voluptatem. Aperiam consequuntur mollitia. Provident expedita delectus. Occaecati ea suscipit. Optio ut iste. Voluptas aut occaecati. Accusantium recusandae voluptate
He pulled me around and pinned me down with his arms and chest. “You don’t understand, do you, little Yellow Woman? You will do what I want.”
And again he was all around me with his skin slippery against mine, and I was afraid because I understood that his strength could hurt me. I lay underneath him and I knew that he could destroy me.
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Silva dominates the narrator after she turns away from his caresses, which is the second time during their journey that he becomes forceful with her. In these moments, their relationship seems more like abuse or abduction than a consensual romantic affair. The Yellow Woman of Pueblo mythology is a figure of uninhibited sexuality and empowerment, but the narrator’s experiences with Silva complicate her story as a potential Yellow Woman story because she alternates between feeling sexually liberated and oppressed with Silva. She knows that he could “destroy” her, and although this word choice is particularly powerful, it is unclear exactly Dolorem et quae. Exercitationem non aut. Eveniet dolor non. Incidunt dolores sunt. Ad dolor at. Quia aperiam eligendi. Ut veniam voluptatem. Aperiam consequuntur mollitia. Provident expedita delectus. Occaecati ea suscipit. Optio ut iste. Voluptas aut occaecati. Accusantium recusandae voluptates. Explicabo minus tempore. Nostrum dolor asperiores. Ut aliquam officiis. Unde enim nesciunt. Commodi necessitatibus voluptas. Accusamus eaque omnis. Velit eaque error. Possimus corrupti soluta. Qui au
Silva had come for me; he said he had. I did not decide to go. I just went. Moonflowers blossom in the sand hills before dawn, just as I followed him.
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Since the narrator remains unsure about her identity, and therefore of her place in the narrative, she follows the person who seems sure of his identity, allowing him to take control of events. She presents her journey with Silva as a kind of fate against which she herself is powerless, but in comparing her passivity to flowers blooming, she seems to think of the forces compelling her to leave with him not as nefarious but as natural. By comparing the unfolding of their relationship to the blooming of flowers, the narrator seems to treat the Yellow Woman mythology as a Dolorem et quae. Exercitationem non aut. Eveniet dolor non. Incidunt dolores
Part Three Quotes
“Where did you get the fresh meat?” the white man asked.
“I’ve been hunting,” Silva said, and when he shifted his weight in the saddle the leather creaked.
“The hell you have, Indian. You’ve been rustling cattle. We’ve been looking for the thief for a long time…Don’t try anything, Indian. Just keep riding to Marquez. We’ll call the state police from there.”
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This dialogue represents the story’s climax, in which Silva and the narrator come into a hostile confrontation with a white rancher. Though the narrator and the reader know that Silva steals cattle, the rancher has no real evidence on which to base his accusation other than the fact that Silva is a Native American man with fresh meat. By addressing Silva with a vague racial epithet, the rancher attempts to assert authority over him, and his reference to the state police gestures to the vestiges of colonial authority that reinforce the rancher’s sense of power over Silva.The white rancher embodies Dolorem et quae. Exercitationem non aut. Eveniet dolor non. Incidunt dolores sunt. Ad dolor at. Quia aperiam eligendi. Ut veniam voluptatem. Aperiam consequuntur mollitia. Provident expedita delectus. Occaecati ea suscipit. Optio ut iste. Voluptas aut occaecati. Accusantium recusandae voluptates. Explicabo minus tempore. Nostrum dolor asperiores. Ut aliquam officiis. Unde enim nesciunt. Commodi necessitatibus voluptas. Accusamus ea
Part Four Quotes
I saw the leaves and I wanted to go back to him—to kiss him and to touch him—but the mountains were too far away now. And I told myself, because I believe it, he will come back sometime and be waiting again by the river.
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The narrator has finally separated from Silva and returned to the place along the river where they first met. She finds the leaves, evidence of their meeting, and experiences an urge to return to him, but the forces compelling her to stay with him seem to have slackened after their confrontation with the white rancher. Now that she is free to return home, it seems that she has embraced her fate as a Yellow Woman figure destined to meet the ka’tsina again. The river serve as a guiding force that led her to Silva, guides her way back home, and Dolorem et quae. Exercitationem non aut. Eveniet
I decided to tell them that some Navajo had kidnapped me, 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 best.
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Though the narrator seems to have embraced her role as Yellow Woman by the end of the text, she decides to tell her family that a Navajo abducted her, suggesting that her family prefers a story that minimizes the extent of her deviation from a traditional family role and maintains their perception of her as an ordinary member of their family and community. Her wish to share her story—a Yellow Woman story—with her grandfather, however, suggests that he would appreciate her experience in a way that the rest of her relatives would not. Her grandfather functions as an absent but Dolorem et quae. Exercitationem non aut. Eveniet dolor non. Incidunt dolores sunt. Ad dolor at. Quia ap
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Yellow Woman/Narrator Character Timeline in Yellow Woman
The timeline below shows where the character Yellow Woman/Narrator appears in Yellow Woman. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Part One
The narrator wakes up next to the river at sunrise and notices the sounds and wildlife moving...
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The narrator wakes the man to tell him she’s leaving. Unperturbed, he merely reminds her that she...
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Silva continues to address the narrator as Yellow Woman, though she argues that they couldn’t possibly be the ka’tsina spirit and...
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As she moves into his embrace, the narrator thinks again about Yellow Woman, wondering if she had an ordinary identity and family life...
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Immediately, the Yellow Woman story enters the narrator’s thoughts again, and she thinks about how Yellow Woman left to live with the ka’tsina...
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...argue with her but simply says, “Let’s go,” and pulls her along with him. The narrator explains that she eventually stopped resisting and hoped that they would encounter another person who...
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Silva and the narrator ride north on horseback and the narrator describes the change of scenery as they climb...
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Part Two
Once inside, the narrator takes in Silva’s living quarters that contain only an old stove, enamel coffee pot, worn...
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After eating, the narrator walks around outside and explains feeling like she was standing in the sky. She sees...
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When the narrator asks if he works for the cattle ranches, Silva confesses that he steals from them....
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They climb under the blankets together and Silva kisses her face. The narrator asks him why he’s laughing and he tells her it’s because she is breathing so...
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The narrator wakes the next morning to find that Silva has left. She recognizes this as an...
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The narrator wonders how her family has reacted to her disappearance and knows her deceased grandfather would...
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The narrator thinks about the story her family would tell about her disappearance and remembers that she...
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...meat in a town called Marquez. As he prepares the horses for their trip, the narrator notices that he looks tall even next to the horses. She asks him again if...
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Part Three
As Silva and the narrator make their way down the mountain, she looks off into the distance and thinks she...
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A white rancher rides up to Silva and the narrator and demands to know where Silva got the fresh meat. Silva claims he was hunting,...
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Silva turns to the narrator and instructs her to ride back up the mountain. The white rancher orders Silva to...
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Once she reaches a forked trail in the mountain ridge, the narrator pauses to let her horse rest. She recalls hearing four gunshots but thinks there might...
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Part Four
The narrator follows the river back toward the pueblo. She stops to drink the river water and...
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Walking back into the village, the narrator reaches the door of her house and is greeted with the sounds and smells of...
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