Leslie Marmon Silko and Joy Harjo are both female Native American writers. Each of the authors’ works contain reoccurring themes, but their styles of writing differ greatly. The Oxford English Dictionary defines a dream as “joy, pleasure, gladness; mirth, rejoicing, jubilation; an instance of this,” (Oxford English Dictionary). For Harjo, the dream world is very real and she even experiences living in it. Joy Harjo is a poet, while Leslie Marmon Silko writes mainly short stories. Harjo’s poem “She Had Some Horses” and Silko’s short story “Yellow Woman” both center around Native American ideas, myths, and concepts; however, each of the authors are portrayed in different ways through their views on myths and the spiritual world and use of figurative language.
To begin with, Joy Harjo and Leslie Marmon Silko both integrate their Native American heritage into their work, although each author displays their specific tribe’s myths and beliefs into their work. Where they grew up has played a major role in how each of them writes. An article by Thomas Irmer says, “Born 1948 in Albuquerque, New Mexico, of mixed ancestry - by her own description Laguna, Pueblo, Mexican, and …show more content…
In Silko’s “Yellow Woman,” she writes, “the house was made with black lava rock and red mud. It was high above the spreading miles of arroyos and long mesas. I smelled a mountain smell of pitch and buck brush,” (Belasco and Johnson, page 1,529). This description of the house is detailed and gives the reader a clear view as to how the house and its surroundings looked. Leslie Marmon Silko uses imagery, but tends to be straight forward in her work; however, Joy Harjo uses more figurative language like personifications in her work. In her poem “She Had Some Horses,” Harjo gives the horses human qualities and also gave the horses qualities of
To begin with, Joy Harjo and Leslie Marmon Silko both integrate their Native American heritage into their work, although each author displays their specific tribe’s myths and beliefs into their work. Where they grew up has played a major role in how each of them writes. An article by Thomas Irmer says, “Born 1948 in Albuquerque, New Mexico, of mixed ancestry - by her own description Laguna, Pueblo, Mexican, and …show more content…
In Silko’s “Yellow Woman,” she writes, “the house was made with black lava rock and red mud. It was high above the spreading miles of arroyos and long mesas. I smelled a mountain smell of pitch and buck brush,” (Belasco and Johnson, page 1,529). This description of the house is detailed and gives the reader a clear view as to how the house and its surroundings looked. Leslie Marmon Silko uses imagery, but tends to be straight forward in her work; however, Joy Harjo uses more figurative language like personifications in her work. In her poem “She Had Some Horses,” Harjo gives the horses human qualities and also gave the horses qualities of