In the following essay, Jaskoski provides a look at the use of allegory in relation to the "essentialist position" in "Storyteller."

"Storyteller," an arctic allegory set in the forbidding reaches of the Yukon River, seems a strange choice as title story for Storyteller, a miscellany suffused with familiar scenes of Silko's beloved Southwest and the intimacy of a family album. The chilling remoteness of "Storyteller," on the other hand, the anonymity of its characters and its lack of connection with the autobiographical or mythical materials in the rest of the book, indicates a special role for this story. Silko herself has noted that this story has a particular significance within the body of her work: "Nowhere is landscape more crucial to the outcome than in my short story 'Storyteller' ("Interior"). This comment emphasizes the necessity of seeing all her fiction in relation to landscape and place.

Every...