A prevalent theme in Silko’s Yellow Woman is that of liminality in terms of location and time. According to Webster’s dictionary, liminality means “threshold” or the act of being on some sort of threshold. It literary terms though, the term means a bit more than that. In literary and cultural theory, liminality is used to designate a space or state of being that is situated between another. In Yellow Woman, this theme is seen in the way that the yellow-womancharacters appear to be between two worlds, the modern world that the woman lives in and the ancient world of the Yellow Woman that the man, Silva, claims to be a part of.The liminality of this story can also be understood in the timeline of the events that take place. Everything that happens is described in an almost dreamlike manner and even though not much time passes throughout the story, it appears as if years could just as easily have passed as days. This theme is also illustrated very well in the scene in which Silva and the woman are standing on a cliff looking down below.

“I was standing in the sky with nothing around me but the wind that came down from the blue mountain peak behind me.” – Yellow Woman, Leslie Marmon Silko

The woman can see nothing distinctive and the scenery sounds dreamlike and unreal, yet Silva says that he can see everything below. He then points out Texas and the border between it and Mexico. This act brings back the realism of the story and makes the liminality of the whole thing more apparent.

This story is one that all writers should read and enjoy. Silko does a seamless job of yellow-womanweaving the ancient story of the Yellow Woman in with the more modern times that she grew up in. Reading this story is important for anyone who wants to begin to get a grasp of the Native American folklore. It is also a great read for anyone wishing to add a more liminal quality to their writing because she has surely perfected the art of this technique. For high school teachers in North America, this would be an opportune time to take your students to a Native American museum to familiarize them with the culture if they have not already been exposed to it. For high school teachers anywhere in the world, it is always helpful to relate the assigned stories to the kids in a more modern way. For this story, I would first recommend assigning a creative writing piece so that they can be exposed to this type of storytelling as it can be a bit confusing. In this assignment, you can have them incorporate any modern twist you think would be interesting. For example, you could have them write in a sort of television show type style, like Saturday Night Live with skits and such.