The Bride Comes to Yellow Sky

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The Bride Comes to Yellow Sky

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Outline

• 1. Main Minor Characters
• 2. Setting
• 3. Plot turning points
• 4. The Climax the encounter

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Main Minor Characters

• How are the bride and the groom presented here? 
  Are they a beautiful couple?  Happily married? 
  What do they feel about their formal clothing?  
  How do they behave to the people around them as
  they talk about the train, look at the silver
  watch and go to the dining room?
• How do the people--the negro porter, the
  passengers and  the negro waiters--on the train
  look at this couple?

4
Jack Potter

• The marshal of Yellow Sky, with a great sense of
  self-importance and responsibility at home, but
  diffidence outside.
• From time to time he looked down respectfully at
  his attire. He sat with a hand on each knee, like
  a man waiting in a barber's shop. The glances he
  devoted to other passengers were furtive and
  shy.
• When talking about the train, He had the pride
  of an owner.
• P. 7 When giving tips to the porter, he does it
  stiffly as that of a man shoeing his first
  horse.
• When announcing their arrival at Yellow Sky, he
  does it as one announcing death.
• Other examples on p. 7.

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The Bride

• Not beautiful, not named,
• this plain, under-class countenance, which was
  drawn in placid, almost emotionless lines.
• Modest and obedient (wifely amiability )
• Looks at the little silver watch she gets from
  her husband.

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Minor Characters

• Gossip over and look down upon the couple
• The negro porter finds the Potters ridiculous.
• Two rows of negro waiters, in glowing white
  suits, surveyed their entrance with the interest
  and also the equanimity of men who had been
  forewarned.

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Plot

• Where is the turning point of section I?  What's
  bothering the groom, Jack Potter, despite his
  happiness about the marriage? 
• ? Potters worry about not telling his people
  about his marriage. P. 5-6
• ?  The traitor to the feelings of Yellow Sky
• How is the second part of their journey home a
  contrast to the first part? Pp. 4-5 
• ? Instead of happiness, they show their sense of
  guilt, escaping home right after they get off the
  train.

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Setting

• Yellow Sky What is it like? Compared with San
  Antonio?
• Yellow Sky a frontier town, simple and not yet
  influenced by capitalism.
• Its the brass bands music is "painful" to the
  ears but a delight to the people there.
• Sandy streets with a few vivid green grass plots.
  (section II)
• "Weary Gentleman" empty and quiet
• Why is the train (Pullman) important?
• a sign of luxury, technology and influences of
  the East. (par 1)

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Setting the "Weary Gentleman" saloon Sec II

• quiet, with only a few people and a dog
• Only the busy drummer, an outsider, talks.
• with increasing fear
• Another man in immovable silence
• Serves as a setting to
• create a sense of suspense (e.g. the door),
• and remind us of the stereotypes of Western (the
  villain, marshal and cowboy).pp. 9-10
• Pay attention to the images of death and
  darkness e.g. solemn, chapel-like gloom
  darkened saloon the arch of a tomb over
  Wilson his cries of ferocious challenge rang
  against walls of silence.
• the sound of a shot, followed by three wild
  yowls

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Scratchy Wilson  (sec III)

• Is he a villain?
• 1. Interested in fashion from the East
• in 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
• And his boots had red tops with gilded imprints,
  of the kind beloved in winter by little sledding
  boys on the hillsides of New England.

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Scratchy Wilson  (sec III)

• Is he a villain?
• A drunkard
• "You see," he whispered, "this here Scratchy
  Wilson is a wonder with a gun -- a perfect wonder
  -- and when he goes on the war trail, we hunt our
  holes -- naturally. He's about the last one of
  the old gang that used to hang out along the
  river here. He's a terror when he's drunk. When
  he's sober he's all right -- kind of simple --
  wouldn't hurt a fly -- nicest fellow in town. But
  when he's drunk -- whoo!"
• Not welcome by the town people
• Can only scare animals. As it occurred to him,
  he roared menacing information.

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the encounter of Jack Potter and Scratchy Wilson
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Historical Significance

• The opening paragraph
• Historically there was supposed to be something
  infinitely humorous in their situation.