To Be Remembered Is to Be Alive: Legacy and Remembrance in 'Storyteller' Marcel Cantu College

In Laguna culture, stories are as central as the language that tells them. Stories weave the world together and are constantly being reinvented and recreated over time. In Storyteller, Leslie Marmon Silko layers short stories, pictures, and poems to portray the common theme that stories and having a storyteller to remember them creates a world where no one truly dies, but lives on in memories. Although all of her works convey this idea, Silko’s short stories, “Storyteller” and “The Storyteller’s Escape”, use characterization to illustrate the cyclical immortality of stories and the ever present need for someone to remember and recite this history. “Storyteller” uses characterization and plot to exemplify the everlasting aspect of stories as well as the customary continuation of a storyteller. Within “Storyteller” there are three main stories present: the grandfather’s story, the story of the woman’s parents’ death, and the the woman’s story. Although each of these stories takes place in its own time, with its own characters, they snowball into one, intertwined story.

The grandfather’s story is told throughout the story of the women’s, and unfolds as hers does. Alternatively, the parents’ death story molds the woman's story,...