“I looked at him beside me, rolled in the red blanket on the white river sand. I cleaned the sand out of the cracks between my toes, squinting because the sun was above the willow trees. I looked at him for the last time, sleeping on the white river sand.
I felt hungry and followed the river south the way we had come the afternoon before, following our footprints that were already blurred by lizard tracks and bug trails.”

-Yellow Woman

Silko, Leslie Marmon. Yellow Woman. Edited by Melody Graulich, Rutgers University Press, 1993, digital.wwnorton.com/3462/r/goto/cfi/1200!/4.

In Yellow Woman, Leslie Silko offers insight into humanities mortality. It is the story of a Native American woman coming to terms with her identity and place in this world. Silko uses sand as a metaphor into humanity’s mortality, to which a comparison to Leo Tolstoy’s usage of illness in The Death of Ivan Ilyich is a metaphor for humanity’s mortality. Mortality and identity are what make up humanity and can be found across cultures.

Leslie Silko’s, Yellow Woman, is a story about a native woman who has been kidnapped by a man named Silva, who believes her to be the Yellow Woman, and he the Ka’tsina. The passage above takes place at the end of the first paragraph in this short story. Before this passage takes place, the narrator is describing the scene of her waking up outside next to a mystery man. In the scenes that take place after this passage, the audience discovers that the mystery man has a name, and it’s Silva. As for the narrator, the only name that is given to her is, “yellow woman”. Throughout the story, she comes to terms with her place and the decisions that she has made. Her Native American heritage causes her to ponder on the possibility that she may in fact be living out the role of the Yellow Woman, if Silva really is a Ka’tsina. Overall, this passage serves as a starting point to explaining the narrator’s journey.

The tone of the narrator seems to have an air of nonchalance about her throughout this passage, and the story. This is seen her lack of attention or even feeling when regarding the mystery man beside her. She describes the nature around her and mentions the man offhandedly, but there does not appear to be any sort of emotional connection to either. This is interesting, because Native American culture typically revolves around one’s connection to nature and each other. However, perhaps the fact that this is a more modern story, the narrator has drifted or put some distance between herself and her Native American heritage. If this were the case, that would also make sense why later in the story she so adamantly denies that she is the Yellow Woman. Overall, her nonchalance in this passage foreshadows a further disenchantment with her Native American heritage throughout the rest of the story.

Furthermore, there is a running theme that goes throughout the story of discovering one’s identity. This theme is not made evident until later in the story, however, this passage does offer a bit of foreshadowing to that theme. This is seen in that Silva is not given a name yet, he is rather a blank slate, his identity is unknown. As for the narrator, her identity is also a mystery. The only characteristics that are made known to the reader is her attention to the nature around her and that there is an unknown relationship to the mystery man. Later in the story, it all comes together as the reader learns that she is Native American, which explains her ties to nature, as well as Silva supposedly being a Ka’tsina, which explains their connection if she is to be the Yellow Woman.

In this passage, the sand works as a metaphor for humanities mortality. Humans have a tendency to be in the way, much like the sand was a nuance in, “the cracks between my (her) toes” (Silko, 1993). Humans often put themselves in situations where they are in the way, often resulting in the frustration of other people, as further demonstrated from the line about the sand in her toes. Furthermore, humans are also susceptible to being shaped by the events of life. In similar fashion, sand moves and adjusts with little force, be it from a sleeping body or a lizard making its way home. Sand is everywhere, just like humanity and mortality.

Moreover, the line where Silko writes, “I looked at him for the last time, sleeping on the white river sand” elucidates to the point that mortality makes humans vulnerable. Humans need water, or they will die. Humans also need sleep, or they lose the ability to function and will die. Both of these attributes of mortality are demonstrated by the use of sand.

In further analysis, the sand being, “blurred by lizard tracks and bug trails”, demonstrates the frailty of humanities control over their lives. The narrator and mystery man had been on an unknown journey, as made evident by how she, “followed the river south the way we (they) had come the afternoon before” (Silko, 1993). This is to say that even though humans have a set path in mind, that path can be wavered or destroyed at the flick of a lizard’s tale. The metaphor of sand shows the unknown aspects of mortality and that humans have little control over their lives.

With the same concept of sand being a metaphor for human mortality in Yellow Woman, The Death of Ivan Ilyich, presents Ivan’s illness as a metaphor for humanity’s mortality. The manifestation of his illness is both physical and mental, impacting everyone around him. He has been made so corrupt by the wealth and need for high social status, that Ivan began to deteriorate mentally before he fell sick physically.

Like the formation of sand, illness deteriorates a person, both physically and mentally. Before Ivan completely began to become ill with the corruption of societies social status’s he was a young man full of life. However, after years of this ‘illness’ he began to deteriorate more and more until the physical illness took over. In similar fashion, sand is formed by a large rock being eroded away at for years at a time until it becomes tiny grains of sand. In the same way, Ivan’s physical illness broke down Ivan’s body. His body is a metaphor for the corruption of society. One get’s out of their body, what one puts into it. His body was once strong and healthy in the beginning of the story, but by the end of it, his body has been worn down and he is spread thin, much like the sand on the river bank. And like sand gets everywhere, Ivan’s illness spread to every crack of his life. His family, his ‘friends’. Like sand, illness is the product of erosion.

Furthermore, Ivan’s illness is a metaphor for mortality in that people are feeble creatures. His illness serves to bring out the true colors of the people in his life. Ivan’s physical illness shows the mental illnesses of those around him. Since becoming sick, Ivan has been able to see the error in his past ways, that material things and money are not what is most important in life. This new way of looking at life showed him who he had been, and who he wished he had been. This is seen in the scene where Ivan is having a conversation with ‘the voice of his soul’. The voice is asking him what Ivan wants, to which Ivan replies that he wants, “to live, as I (he) lived before: well and pleasantly”, but as he ponders his memories, he discovers that, “all these best moments of pleasant life seemed quite different from what they had seemed then… But the person who had experienced those pleasant things no longer existed” (Tolstoy, 1886). Ivan has become well mentally in that he is able to realize that he is a different person now and that his past desires of a ‘sick’ mind who wanted different things.

All in all, regardless of one’s culture, mortality is a common denominator of humanity. While the Native American culture is rooted in nature, it comes as no surprise that sand would be a metaphor for humanity’s mortality. As for the Russian culture that The Death of Ivan Ilyich comes from, they are rooted in social and financial status. And taking that into consideration, that constant desire to be more is a plague to the mind and body, much like the use of illness as a metaphor. And thus, realizing one’s mortality and coming to terms with one’s identity are part of what makes up being human.

Works Cited

Silko, Leslie Marmon. Yellow Woman. Edited by Melody Graulich, Rutgers University Press, 1993, digital.wwnorton.com/3462/r/goto/cfi/1200!/4.

Tolstoy, Leo. The Death of Ivan Ilyich. Edited by Peter Simon, 3rd ed., vol. 2, 1886, digital.wwnorton.com/3462/r/goto/cfi/12!/4.