Analysis on the Bride Comes to Yellow Sky
Analysis of The Bride Comes to Yellow Sky
Set on the Texas frontier, “The Bride Comes to Yellow Sky” is a short story in which the setting plays a major role in symbolizing the changes in western civilization, as the East flows into the old West. The theme of the story is that change is inevitable whether one likes it or not it is going to eventually happen. This story uses symbolism to put images in our minds of the old West and the new West as well as how the characters are portrayed throughout the story.
In part one, Crain uses Jack Potter, the protagonist traveling from the old West, which is somewhat civilized, to meet and marry a woman that is older and more civilized from the East. The writer then uses their travels on a train as a mode of transportation or “vehicle” coming from the East to the West. In the story there is a vision of new materials like Jack's “new black clothes” and the “watch” (243) symbolizing that Jack is now a new man that has grown up and away from the ways of the old West. Crain gives the husband a name but not the bride. The name of the wife doesn't seem to matter. The important thing is the marriage itself which is used to illustrate a civilization coming to the west.
In part two and three we are now focused on the “Weary Gentleman saloon” in Yellow Sky (246). The name of the saloon is symbolic itself meaning the gentlemen seem to be exhausted. Maybe exhausted in the ways of the old West. The “drummer” (246) or traveling salesman from the East is symbolic of how civilization of the east is approaching the West. Then Scratchy, the antagonist, arrives in the story and by his name you can tell he is a rough man. The bartender “moving like a ghost” (247) could refer to the town slowly becoming civilized into the new West. Scratchy wears a “maroon-colored flannel shirt, which had been purchased for purposes of decoration, and made principally by some Jewish women on the East Side of New York” (248). This context
Set on the Texas frontier, “The Bride Comes to Yellow Sky” is a short story in which the setting plays a major role in symbolizing the changes in western civilization, as the East flows into the old West. The theme of the story is that change is inevitable whether one likes it or not it is going to eventually happen. This story uses symbolism to put images in our minds of the old West and the new West as well as how the characters are portrayed throughout the story.
In part one, Crain uses Jack Potter, the protagonist traveling from the old West, which is somewhat civilized, to meet and marry a woman that is older and more civilized from the East. The writer then uses their travels on a train as a mode of transportation or “vehicle” coming from the East to the West. In the story there is a vision of new materials like Jack's “new black clothes” and the “watch” (243) symbolizing that Jack is now a new man that has grown up and away from the ways of the old West. Crain gives the husband a name but not the bride. The name of the wife doesn't seem to matter. The important thing is the marriage itself which is used to illustrate a civilization coming to the west.
In part two and three we are now focused on the “Weary Gentleman saloon” in Yellow Sky (246). The name of the saloon is symbolic itself meaning the gentlemen seem to be exhausted. Maybe exhausted in the ways of the old West. The “drummer” (246) or traveling salesman from the East is symbolic of how civilization of the east is approaching the West. Then Scratchy, the antagonist, arrives in the story and by his name you can tell he is a rough man. The bartender “moving like a ghost” (247) could refer to the town slowly becoming civilized into the new West. Scratchy wears a “maroon-colored flannel shirt, which had been purchased for purposes of decoration, and made principally by some Jewish women on the East Side of New York” (248). This context