Analysis of “Yellow Woman” and “Everyday Use”

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Analysis of “Yellow Woman” and “Everyday Use”
Every society follows a set of traditions that continue evolution through the innovations and new generations' new trends. Keeping pace with time, many of the traditions become outdated. However, the cultural bloodstream tracing the traditional value of society back to history is a fact, which keeps a few people drawn despite social changes. Both Walker and Silko paint characters who, despite the pull of modernity, are inherently drawn to traditions of the past, particularly, a Pueblo woman in “Yellow Woman” and Maggie in “Everyday Use” hold on to their traditions with both hands, almost painfully so.
Yellow Woman thematically represents a connection between the past and the present. Although the narrator recalls her present life, through which the reader comes to know about her family. It becomes clear that she is married and an infant with other family members in the house. However, when she is with the stranger, her feelings shift to methodological tenderness for him. Whatever he demands, the woman readily gives him. in a few moments of her rejection of the man’s love, he makes forced love but soon wins her heart. It seems that she is outside the boundaries of time and space – in a world of myth approved by the past (Osborne-McKnight and Silko 364). The incident gives exposure to the associations of the narrator with her time-honored traditions. Her protests might symbolize a change, but it remained only half-hearted, allowing the man to overpower her. It gives a glimpse of the old patriarchic traditions that underpin the woman’s beliefs and morality.
The woman is under the influence of nostalgia, which also plays a vital role in shaping her decision and response to certain prompts. Another connection of the story to the past is her grandfather's memories, which keep haunting the narrator. When she intends to leave Silva, he reminds her that she has to stay with him and obey his orders. She remembers her grandfather's storytelling, who told her about the Asian mountain spirit kidnapping yellow women in the past. Her nostalgic association gets more in-depth, with her rising intimacy with the stranger during the two days. She confirms the fictional character by her tenderness, love, and closeness to Silva, a kidnapping character in her grandpa's stories (Mary). It is a fine example of how she maintains a connection with her past and how her nostalgic experience remains a defining power.
Moreover, the narrator of the story is the protagonist who tells us her story of the venture while remembering her grandfather’s storytelling (Spurgeon 171). Hence, the author emphasizes the art of ‘storytelling,’ which was a common tradition among the previous native generations of America. This tradition's attachment with the story's central character also links the two spares of time, elaborating the narrator's painful mentality.
On a meta-level, the narrator reflects all other people throbbing by sticking to traditions' glory while living in the present. They do not accept the death of the past's conventional values interrupted by the modern age's di...