Eastern Influences on the West Stephen Crane’s short story “The Bride Comes to Yellow Sky” is a story about Jack Porter, the town marshal, his new bride and their anticipation of going back to his home of Yellow Sky. The story is told in the omniscient point of view, conflict and setting. It is traditional western literature using parody and realism to depict the influence of the East on the West. The first basic tool of “The Bride comes to Yellow Sky” is the omniscient point of view by the author telling us everything including why the characters are thinking, feeling, and acting as they do. For example, when he talks about “a newly married pair” (Crane p. 618) boarding a coach “The Pullman Train” at San Antonio, Jack Potter asks his bride about having “ever been in a parlor car before” (p.
618).
This point of view helps us to see a parable of the East’s invasion of the West through role changes in as small western town. The second tool is that of conflict. I feel there is conflict in this story on more than one occasion.
First, Jack Porter has conflict with himself at the thoughts of betraying his friends in his home town of Yellow Sky by not letting them know he had planned to get married. The second conflict is when Jack Potter comes face to face with Scratchy Wilson, the town drunk. Scratchy wanted to have a gun fight, Jack “Potter looked at his enemy” (p. 626).
The third tool is setting. The first setting is the train ride where Crane writes: The great Pullman was whirling onward with such dignity of motion that at a glance from the window seemed simply to prove that the plains of Texas were pouring eastward.
The Essay on Yellow Sky Town Potter Bride
... constant reflection by the town s marshal, Jack Potter on his ... Stephan Crane s The Bride Comes to Yellow Sky. In the story there is a ... love and duty in The Bride Comes to Yellow Sky In this essay I will discuss the conflict between love and duty in ...
(Crane 617) The second setting is in The Weary Gentleman saloon. “There were six men at the bar of the Weary Gentleman saloon” (p. 621).
The western saloon has all the wild west traditions including whiskey, saloon girls, guns, and a bartender.
There is also a character called the drummer who is a traveling salesman. Crane uses him as an observer so that the local customers and their roles can be explained. The third setting is when Potter and Scratchy meet face to face, a far different outcome occurs than what Scratchy had expected. Scratchy expects a duel, the climax of a western novel. Instead he is told of the marriage an unexpected outcome for a man expecting a gunfight: “I ain’t got a gun because I’ve just come from San Anton’ with my wife. I’m married.” (p.
627).
Scratchy pretends his world is shattered when he finds out Potter doesn’t have a gun: “So much enforced reasoning had told on Wilson’s rage; he was calmer. “if you ain’t got a gun, why ain’t you got a gun?” he sneered. “Been to Sunday school?” (p.
627) Stephen Crane’s novel “The Bride comes to Yellow Sky” is a novel based on the changing roles of the West. Jack Potter reluctantly accepts his new role while Scratchy Wilson cannot face his. Symbolism is used in Stephen Crane’s novel to illustrate and and compare Roberts 3 the effect of Eastern society on the West.
