“From the time I was a small child, I was aware that I was different.” (par.1) Leslie Marmon Silko begins her beautifully reflective essay; Yellow Woman and a Beauty Spirit with this sentence. By stating something so intimate Silko immediately engages the reader by making him or her curious as to why Silko “was different”. It also provides the reader with the clear fact that Silko is aware of her “difference” and has been living and struggling with it throughout her life. It convinces the reader that this difference is very important to Silko. This allows the reader to be aware that Silko includes clear points, convincing ideas, and engaging words to make her structural exposition very effective, from the very beginning of her essay.
“Yellow …show more content…
Throughout the essay Silko often references her Grandma A’mooh, and the “old-time people.” Although all of these references are very smooth, often moving onto a new story or statement by simply association but at times also jumping from one thing to something incredibly different. For example, she talks about “Tse’itsi’nako” and then quickly shifts onto discussing the appearance of her great-grandmother (par. 10,11). Also, when she is retelling stories of Yellow Woman, she brings back a memory, Silko first writes, “Thus Kochininako’s fearless sensuality results in the salvation of the people of her village, who are saved by the meat the Buffalo People ‘give’ to them” (par. 27). then immediately follows this story with “My father taught me and my sisters to shoot .22 rifles when we were seven; I went hunting with my father when I was eight, and I killed my first mule deer buck when I was thirteen. The Kochininako stories were always my favorite because Yellow Woman had so many adventures” (par.28). This memory is very relevant because she relates herself to Silko even though she makes no effort to transition in or out of it. Silko uses juxtaposition to show how memory works in people’s minds(unconnected scenes appear one after the other) throughout the