Lullaby by Leslie Marmon Silko - Summary

The story is comprised mostly of the main character's thoughts, which I decided were more easily summarized in bullet points.

• Ayah (an old Indian) sits outside in the snow immersed in nature reflecting on the past and the future
• Her son Jimmie was a soldier
• She thinks of her mother, grandmother and herself preparing wool and weaving blankets
• She thinks of Jimmie's birth
• She recalls when she was informed of Jimmie's death
• Chato- Ayah's husband?

She recalls how:

• She mourned Jimmie
• She signed papers that allowed her children Ella and Danny to be taken away by doctors without understanding what she signed, but then ran away with the children
• The next day Chato, Ayah’s husband, explained that the children had inherited a disease from Ayah's grandmother and she had signed an agreement to treat them
• The children were taken away
• She had had other children who died but it was bearable because they were with her

Back to the present:

• It starts snowing
• Chato doesn't come back. She suspects he might have stayed behind at the bar where he was buying the wine and sometimes got drunk.
• She walks to find him and he isn't outside the bar
• She goes into the bar and they don't make her leave because they are afraid of her
• She recalls the first time the white people brought her children back to her. The white woman who brought her was judgmental and the children like strangers. Over time they forgot Navajo and they stopped coming.
• She likes that they fear her
• She continues looking for Chato
• She recalls when they starting getting welfare
• Her husband has been forgetful lately
• She finds him and they walk in the snow together
• They find shelter from the storm under giant boulders
• She tucks the blanket around Chato and remembers Ella and she sings to him a song she had been sung as a child by her mother and grandmother

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Notes

·       Attention to the elements (of nature)

·       Thinking of the past and future

·       Weaving

·       Denial/ misunderstanding/spirituality?

·       White people distinguished as "the white man"

·       Nature is relaxing

·       Emotions associated with nature                                                                                                        

    

·       Marking the past by the seasons