Lullaby

Fiction | Short Story | Adult | Published in 2002

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Symbols & Motifs

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Symbols & Motifs

Blankets

Blankets are the most prominent motif in “Lullaby,” and they are important in several ways. For one, they are closely associated with the theme of motherhood; mothers use blankets to swaddle their children and keep them warm, and the image of someone wrapped within or covered by a blanket can evoke the image of a woman’s pregnant body. In this passage, for instance, the act of covering Chato with a blanket flows directly into Ayah’s recollection of carrying Ella: “She tucked the blanket around him, remembering how it was when Ella had been with her" (51).

Blankets are for Ayah a symbol of Navajo cultural identity and memory that is preserved across successive generations of women; early in the story, Ayah recalls learning to comb wool from her grandmother and watching as her grandmother and mother spun, dyed, and wove the yarn. Like the traditional lullaby Ayah sings, the blanket motif frames the preservation of Navajo tradition as a form of maternal care, reinforcing for the reader the fact that Navajo culture is matrilineal.

The blanket that plays the most significant role in the story is neither Navajo in origin nor made by Ayah’s mother and grandmother; rather, it is the U.S. Army blanket given to Ayah by her now deceased son Jimmie. This is the blanket she uses to keep warm while waiting for her husband, and the one she later uses to cover him as he is dying. From one angle, the U.S. Army blanket is emblematic of the encroachment of American society on the Navajo way of life, but Ayah herself doesn’t view the blanket in this way. Instead, she takes great comfort in the blanket, both because of its associations with Jimmie and because it calls to mind memories of her mother and grandmother. In this way, the blanket symbolizes Ayah’s realization at the end of the story: her culture, family, and history are not truly lost, but continue to exist in some form.

Pregnancy, Birth, and Breastfeeding

The thematic importance of motherhood to “Lullaby” is reinforced by the recurring images of Ayah’s pregnant or nursing body, as well as in images that evoke pregnancy or breastfeeding. For instance, Silko describes Ayah's grief over the loss of Danny and Ella as if her grief was an unborn child: “She carried the pain in her belly and it was fed by everything she saw” (47). This emphasis on the physicality of motherhood echoes the visceral connection Ayah feels to the land, which both Silko and Navajo mythology conceptualize as a mother itself. Perhaps the most striking example of this mythological connection is the description of the “lava hills” as a nursing mother from whom Danny and Ella are being “weaned” as they assimilate into white American society. The association between the earth and motherhood is also implicit in Ayah’s desire to return to her family’s hogan; the hogan is the place where she was born, and the symbolism of the Navajo hogan honors a woman’s pregnant form, representing the way in which the hogan’s occupants are cradled and nurtured by Mother Earth.

Sky

As the closing lullaby suggests, Navajo mythology believes that the sky is a father deity who exists in harmony with and in complement to the female Earth. This context is key to understanding the significance of the sky as a motif in “Lullaby,” where Silko often pairs sky imagery with earth imagery to evoke the totality of the Navajo way of life. For example, when Ayah loses custody of Ella and Danny, she finds it hard to draw breath from the sky or food from the ground because, “The air and the food would have been theirs” (47).

The sky also twice appears as a source of solace to Ayah—when she is hiding with Danny and Ella in the hills, and at the story’s close as Chato dies beside her. The repetition of the motif works in part to draw a parallel between the two scenes, encouraging readers to see the story’s ending as an opportunity for closure; in these final moments, Ayah’s traumatic loss of her children is mitigated by her tender actions towards her dying husband. However, cultural context is also important in understanding these two passages. The sense of peace and unity Ayah experiences while looking into the sky is not a function of the vastness and beauty of the universe, but rather of Ayah’s own alignment, as a woman and a mother, with the land. The sky is thus a source of balance in Ayah’s life that can be relied upon in a way her flawed human complement, Chato, cannot.

Animals

Silko demonstrates Ayah’s sense of unity with the world around her through the use of animal imagery. When Ayah is interpreting people and events, as when she notices the doctors “look[ing] at the children, like the lizard watches the fly” (45), the use of animal imagery enables the reader to understand Ayah’s connection with the natural world. Silko also depicts the natural world—animals included—as mirroring experiences in Ayah’s own life. For example, while hiding with the children in the hills, Ayah notices a hawk flying overhead: “[H]unting or only watching, she did not know. The hawk was patient and he circled all afternoon before he disappeared around the high volcanic peak the Mexicans called Guadeloupe” (46). The moment both echoes Ayah’s earlier fear that the doctors will encircle the hill where she has taken refuge, and serves as a warning that they too will be “patient” and return.