The Bride Comes to Yellow Sky

"The Bride Comes to Yellow Sky"

Stephen Crane

Stephen Cranes piece of literature entitled The Bride Comes to Yellow Sky is a representation of crime that happens in the town of Yellow Sky. Crane's setting, theme, characters, and action is a picture of rivalry between the east and west. This piece of literature was quite confusing for me at first while reading. The nature of the conflict that Marshal Potter feels on the train in Part 1 of the story is the fact that he married his bride and had uneasy feeling about taking her back to Yellow Sky where none of the townspeople know he is a husband now. He feels he has committed a "crime" in bringing home a bride to Yellow Sky. I think he may feel uneasy because he is unsure of how the townspeople are going to react.

The Drummer is a traveling salesman who loves to talk. The Drummer was telling some tales and not sure what was going on in Yellow Sky. He is a new-comer to the town and seemed swayed between the interest of a foreigner and perception of personal danger. The drummer kept asking questions and paying no attention to what the bartender was telling him. The bartender was telling the drummer to get behind the bar because that was probably the safest place for him to be. The drummer kept refusing until he realized it might be much safer. 

There are many details to support the story's theme of being Western. For example, the bride wore a dress of blue cashmere. It had small reservations of velvet in different places with steel buttons. The dress also consisted of puffy sleeves that were stiff, straight, and high. Scratchy Wilson wore a maroon colored flannel shirt. The revolving guns that some people carried also go along with the Western theme.