Full Circle Writing Experts

Leslie Marmon Silko was greatly influenced by her native cultural tradition, spirituality, and myths in the writing of Yellow Woman. She artistically weaves together this story seemingly simplistic, yet incorporates, and maintains, strong bonds to the oral tradition of storytelling, and the spiritual connection represented in the Pueblo cultural beliefs. Silko was raised in the Pueblo Indians culture, and schooled in the oral tradition of the myths and legends of her people.

“Leslie Marmon Silko (b. 1948) is a major figure in the American Indian Renaissance. Raised in Old Laguna on the Pueblo Reservation near Albuquerque, New Mexico. Silko weaves the mythology of her matrilineal society in what she refers to as an ocean of time” throughout her stories. (Schilb, 720). Her use of time, color, and landscape are directly tied to the Pueblo spiritual traditions and cultural emphasis of non-linear time.

This fact is in evidence in her version of the story Yellow Woman. Silkos’ use of a dreamlike state for the telling of a mythical tale, instills a sense of “fantasy” for the reader. This can be attributed to the Pueblo traditional belief that time is not a linear concept. In a recent Interview by Thomas Irmer, of the Alt-X Berlin/Leipzig Press, Leslie Marmon Silko was asked if her stories were reinterpretations of the old legends:

Well no, it’s not reinterpretation. I think their spirit is unbroken because of the oral tradition. If you think, 500 years, that is how long Europeans are in the Americas, is not a very long time. Because for 18,000 years there is evidence, and perhaps longer, of the Pueblo people being in that land. So for 500 years of Christianity and the conflict with it, how many generations are this? Not that many.

The interpretations of the old stories remains the same because of the oral tradition. It goes back through time so that the immediacy is now. It is very important how time is seen;

The Pueblo people and the indigenous people of the Americas see time as round, not as a long linear string. If time is round, if time is an ocean, then something that happened 500 years ago may be quite immediate and real, whereas something inconsequential that happened an hour ago could be far away. Think of time as an ocean always moving. What is interesting to me about Einstein and post-Einsteinian physics and some of the discoveries in particle physics, is what they have discovered about the nature of time, the curvature of time in space. So I grew up among people whose experience of time is a bit different. (Irmer 3).

Silko not only explains the Pueblo view of time, but helps us to understand how her interpretation of Yellow Woman is soundly connected to the old legends, and is not considered to be a reinterpretation by her, but is, in fact, the original story from the oral tradition. The non-linear view of time can also be used to show that the unnamed heroine of Yellow Woman is, in fact, the original legendary character from the oral tradition. Differences aren’t important, significance is.

Interestingly enough, Silkos’ version is written in the first person. This is an assumed deviation from the oral tradition unless an oral presentation is given by yellow woman herself. This perspective is effective in drawing in the reader to identify with the narrator:

In keeping with the concept of significance, and of non-linear time, the heroine starts to believe that she is Yellow Woman, despite her statement to the contrary; “’I don’t believe it. Those stories couldn’t happen now… He shook his head and said softly, but someday they will talk about us, and they will say, but those two lived long ago when things like that happened” (Silko 723).

Another traditional storytelling device typical of the Pueblo culture is the use of color to depict direction or landscape. Leslie Marmon Silko uses extensive descriptions involving color not just for imagery, but for location:

One of these devices is the result of the importance in Pueblo culture of the cardinal directions (north, west, south and east being the usual four of importance, with nadir and zenith sometimes added) and the symbolic colors associated with them; yellow for north, blue for the west, red for the south, white for the east, variegated for nadir, and black for zenith (Parsons 99).

As the story begins, Silva and the woman are in the lowlands (nadir), and the descriptions of the multi-color (variegated) surroundings are symbolic of their location: “brown water-birds”, “green ragged moss and fern leaves”, “red blanket on the white river sand” (Silko 721). The woman feels hungry and followed the river south. “I tried to look beyond the pale red mesas to the pueblo” and Silva “lies asleep in the red blanket”

(721). Later in the story they begin to travel north as they continue the direction they had come the night before. When they arrive in the mountains, color imagery turns dark to

the black of zenith; “black lava rock and red mud”, “black horse”, “black mountain dirt” and “black rim rock”(723). Observing to the east, with the mountains to the west of Silvas’ cabin, “I was standing in the sky with nothing around me but the wind that came down the blue mountain peak behind me. I wondered who was over there to feel the mountain wind on those sheer blue edges, who walks on the pine needles in those blue mountains”(723). Later, the narrator describes blue flowers growing behind the cabin, presumably the west side of the cabin.

Many other examples of landscape and direction are symbolized by the use of color in Yellow Woman. It is interesting to note how this device works to connect the story with the earth, the earth with its people, and thus, the spiritual essence of the Pueblo culture. This seems to give the reader a sense of center at the pueblo. Although the center is not attained by the heroine until the end of the story, Yellow Woman seems “off center” in the story, to the north of her origin.

The symbolism of color for landscape and location appears quite effective in connecting the reader to the spiritual essence of Pueblo culture and tradition. By relating her story to the land, Silko also connects the story to the ancient oral tradition, and to the original stories of Yellow Woman.

When I think about the writer I have become, I must think about the literary influences of my youth. I loved to read mystery and science fiction novels. I would submerge my entire existence into reading and would become unaware of the happenings around me. It could best be likened to a hypnotic trance. The events described in great detail on the pages before me played out in my mind as if I were a participant in the story, or perhaps an observer at close range. The more outlandish and fantastic the plot, the further I became from my sometimes dismal, sometimes threatening existence.

The general theme of the science fiction stories that specifically influenced my writing style was that knowledge is power. In almost every plot, a character would solve some life-or-death dilemma with his or her power of knowledge. Descriptive scenarios of the impossible inspired me to expand my thinking from its taught, narrow origins. In a new universe of freedom, I could be anyone, anywhere, and anything could happen. I also developed an attraction to certain styles of science fiction writing that enabled me to learn new things and thus, feel empowered by the new knowledge.

Among the science fiction writers who influenced and empowered me were Arthur Clarke, Theodore Sturgeon and Isaac Asimov. I was exposed to these writers at a very early age, perhaps seven or eight years old. I don’t recall having any sort of writing style prior to this period. I was just learning what writing was about, and I adopted their styles of writing. In the novel I, Robot by Isaac Asimov, one of the main characters makes

use of simple chemistry to not only solve the problem of robots running amuck, but to also save his and his colleagues life. He had deduced that “carbon monoxide plus iron gives the volatile iron carbonyl. And a robot is essentially iron,” Upon reading this, I wondered how the character knew of such things? Is this based on true science? Is this common knowledge I had yet to be exposed to? I found shortly after that such was the case. My style of writing became analytical because that’s where I saw the power in science fiction. I can recall writing science fiction stories at a young age in imitation of these writers. I wrote stories about robots wanting to be humans, humans who wanted to be androids, distant worlds of fantastic adventure and mystery. Central to the plot was always some fact based on science that was key in the theme of the story. I wrote of darkness and evil, of great conflicts, destruction and death. These story lines came from rage.

Rage was my motivation. Powerlessness caused my attraction to knowledge. It was a way of empowering myself, and I needed a survival instinct such as this to cope with my life. My father was an alcoholic and a physically abusive man. My mother was an enabler and practiced strong denial of the problem. The beatings came regularly, my self-esteem was driven to lower and lower levels. My escape was not to be found in the real world, only in the fantasy of reading and writing.

Mystery novels and stories also got my attention at a young age. I read many “Hardy Boys” books and would try to guess what would happen next in the plot, or how the story would end. Mostly, I was trying to solve the mystery that the story presented. Once I

became familiar with the writer’s style, I got pretty good at guessing. I even tried my own hand at writing a few simple mystery stories.

My interest in mystery stories developed as another coping mechanism that could be used in my life for survival. If I got real good at guessing outcomes, I might be on guard for the next attack. I became hyper-aware of my environment (when I wasn’t reading). I developed keen survival instincts that served to protect me well.

At about age twelve I developed a strong interest in the Bible. It was, after all, much like science fiction and mystery to me. I became interested as a result of my early religious education. The Baptist Church taught from fear and punishment, two things that, by now, I knew a lot about because of the abuse I received. I reveled at the possibility of my parents’ punishment by God’s hand. What they did to me surely was a sin, and I took comfort in the belief that they would pay for it someday. I would spend hours trying to unravel the meanings of the symbolism in Daniel and Revelations, such as the breaking of the seven seals and the seven heads and ten horns of the dragon.

I believe this early influence expanded my mind to interests of a spiritual and philosophical nature later in life, and ultimately, thus far, the relationships between philosophy and science. I became interested in the writings of Plato, Heraclitus, Democritus, and more recently, Nietzsche, Pythagoras and Einstein. Philosophy seemed a more systematic approach to answer the eternal questions of the meaning of life and the cause of our existence, than did the Bible.

Searching for the answers about existence and God, I stay on the edge of my seat, waiting for an expected epic disclosure from deep understanding of these writings. It has

not come in this expected way. I have come to view knowledge as a kind of difficult slog toward truth, inching so very slowly forward, and sometimes even backward. Seeking

knowledge is personal. It is, in philosophical terms, theoretical and subjective. The very existence of truth and knowledge comes into question, right along with cause and effect.

I see my writing style as analytical, yet the words seem insufficient to convey clear meaning and impact. Its evolvement is too little, its descriptive details and examples lacking. My writing style is born out of great inspiration. Thus far, it has fallen far short of my perceived standard. Perhaps I feel this way because my literary influences were my images of greatness for my own potential. They were powerful. They gave me a way to survive in a hostile world, where as nothing else could. They produced magic results that transformed and healed my life. To imitate this literature seems almost an impossible task, as the cause is elevated infinitely by the effect.