60 pages • 2 hours read
Leslie Marmon SilkoYellow Woman and a Beauty of Spirit
Nonfiction | Essay Collection | Adult | Published in 1993A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Themes
Interconnectivity
The central theme of Silko’s essays concern the interconnectivity of all things, both living and nonliving. In Pueblo culture, all things were believed to have been created by Thought Woman; therefore, all things are connected to one another. As everything is created by the goddess, there is a kind of divinity to this interconnectivity, which Silko describes in terms of scientific magic:“Fields of electromagnetic force affect light. Crowds of human beings massed together emanate actual electricity. Individual perceptions and behavior are altered” (182). Silko uses the science of energy to identify how human beings are connected to one another. In this way, she conflates Anglo science with Pueblo magic, suggesting that the interconnectivity of all beings is something greater than human: it is divine and therefore, beyond full human comprehension.
Part of the emphasis on interconnectedness stems from the harshness of the terrain the Pueblo inhabited; isolation meant death, so it was necessary for the Pueblo to believe in interconnectivity in order to ensure their survival. Silko uses the content and format of the essays in order to reinforce this interconnectivity:
This book of essays is structured like a spider’s web. It begins with the land; think of the land, the earth, as the center of a spider’s web. Human identity, Imagination, and storytelling were inextricably linked to the land, to Mother Earth, just as the strands of the spider’s web radiate from the center of the web (21).
Silko uses the format and content of the essays to present the Pueblo belief that everything within the Pueblo culture—which extends to encompass the environment—is tied to one another via connection to place. It is the land that gives the Pueblo identity; therefore, it is the land that ties the Pueblo to one another. However, the land also ties the Pueblo to the other living beings which inhabit the land, as they rely upon the antelope and other animals for survival. The Pueblo maintain that without this connectivity, the land can be taken, which is the false justification the narrator believes the Europeans used for their actions toward Native Americans. Because this was not a correct assumption, the interconnectivity of the Pueblo people to each other and to the land then substantiates the narrator’s assertion that the land will, in time, be returned to them.
This idea of interconnectivity is substantially different from the individualism of white people. In contrast to the Pueblo people, who believe in the connection between themselves and the land, the Anglo views the land as being something separate from themselves; indeed, they often do not seem connected to the land at all, as is evidenced by the English language itself:
The term landscape, as it has entered the English language, is misleading. ‘A portion of territory the eye can comprehend in a single view’ does not correctly describe the relationship between the human being and his or her surroundings. This assumes the viewer is somehow outside or separate from the territory she or he surveys. Viewers are as much a part of the landscape as the boulders they stand on (27).
Silko presents the Pueblo belief that people are not separate from the landscape; rather, they are a part of it, connected to the land itself. This presents the dichotomy between the Anglo viewpoint and the Pueblo way of looking at things, in which the Pueblo people believe in the connectedness of all things to one another, whereas whites see themselves first as individuals, rather than a part of a community or environment.
Part of the way in which the Pueblo are able to achieve and reiterate this interconnectivity is through the tradition of communal storytelling, with the Pueblo connection to the land itself reiterated within the oral stories:“The Pueblo people have always connected certain stories with certain locations; it is these places that give narratives such resonance over the centuries. The Pueblo people and the land and the stories are inseparable” (14). Each aspect of this triumvirate reinforces the other: the people are connected to the land via stories, the people connected to the stories via the land, and the stories are connected to the land via the people.
The Personification of Place
Throughout her essays, Silko adheres to the Pueblo construction of the land as a living being worthyof respect. In this way, she personifies place, lending various locations or geological formations human characteristics. When speaking of the hungry arroyo that repeatedly devours cars, the narrator says, “People in the area regard the arroyo much as they might regard a living being, which has a certain character and personality” (40). It is important to note, then, that this personification of place is not the fanciful interpretation of the narrator but rather a widespread belief within the Pueblo community. The entire Pueblo community conceives of the land as a living being and each specific location thus has its own character and personality. In this way, the people are connected to the land itself as well as various geological formations; they are able to find similarities between themselves and the earth, reinforcing the interconnectivity between the Pueblo people and the land. This personification of the earth also leads the Pueblo people to understand that the earth does not merely deserve but rather demands respect.
Much like a person, the land in a specific location is seen by the Pueblo peoples as having memory and identity:“The myth, the web of memories and ideas that create an identity, is a part of oneself. This sense of identity was intimately linked with the surrounding terrain, to the landscape that has often played a significant role in a story or the outcome of a conflict” (43). Silko does not present the people as having these memories, but rather states that these memories are contained within the land itself, suggesting that the land is a sentient living being. Therefore, it is the landscape that affects the nature of communal stories, not the other way around.
As a result of the personification of place, there is also a certain divinity in every location, as the earth was created by Thought Woman. Silko sees the sacred and divine in every location, much like how the sacred or divine can be seen in every person or being:“The traditional notion of the wondrous in a splendid setting befitting its claim is subverted here in this landscape where the wondrous can be anywhere and is everywhere. Even in the midst of a strip-mining operation” (133). To Silko, every location is sacred, reinforcing the divine interconnectivity evident in everything. This viewpoint is also distinctly different from the way in which Anglo-Westerners view the land. Instead of viewing the land as property, the Pueblo people view the land as a sentient being. As a result of the joint personification and divinity associated with the land, the land supersedes human beings as a kind of god in and of itself. As such, it cannot be violated by humans.
A Need for Justice
Central to Silko’s essays is the underlying theme of the need for justice for Native Americans. Silko blames the US government, among many others, for abuses against Native Americans that range from genocide to kidnapping of the land. Although she admits that at first, she attempted to counteract these injustices by going to law school, she eventually realized that neocolonialism was built into the very fabric of America: “The Anglo-American legal system was designed by and for the feudal lords; to this day, money and power deliver ‘justice’ only to the rich and powerful; it cannot do otherwise” (20). As such, Silko understood that there would be no avenue for true justice via the law.
Instead, Silko decides that the only way for the Native Americans to seek justice is“through the power of stories” (20). In order to counter the injustices perpetrated by the Anglo-American legal system and forms of governance, Silko realizes that she must turn inward, looking to the Pueblo community to disrupt these acts of disharmony. She realizes she cannot appropriate Anglo-American ideas in order to seek justice for her people, and instead places her faith in the Native American prophecy that Europeans will eventually disappear from the Americas. She believes that if Anglo-Americans do not change the way that they are treating the native peoples—that is, if Anglo-American traditions of feudalism do not begin to disappear—there will be revolution.
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By Leslie Marmon Silko
