Point of View

The story is told through an objective, thirdperson narrative, and unfolds in a rigidly objective tone. There is no hint of the narrator's personal voice as each character is presented. With the exception of the graveyard scene that concludes the story, the narrator does not explain the character's thoughts, but presents only the action of the story.

Setting

The story is set on the Laguna Indian Reservation in New Mexico. The landscape of the story with its arroyos and mesas is an integral part of the story. Silko captures the landscape very effectively in her narrative. For instance, "The big cottonwood tree stood apart from a small grove of winterbare cottonweeds which grew in the wide, sandy arroyo. . . . Leon waited under the tree while Ken drove the truck through the deep sand to the edge of the arroyo. . . . But high and northwest the blue mountains were...