The Traces of the American Frontiers

The theme of the American frontier has been the subject of many works in American literature. The term frontier in the American context applied to largely unsettled areas. They were located outside existing areas that had been occupied and settled upon. The American frontier can be called the “Wild West”. The embellished image of the West was one of a barren landscape filled with cowboys and romantic ways of life. Cowboys played an important role in the setting of the West. Traces of this theme can be seen in the story "The Bride Comes To Yellow Sky" written by Stephen Crane. 

The title describes the events in the short story. Yellow Sky is a town in the Old West. This story mainly focuses on the major changes in Western civilization as it shows the new and the old West. It is told from the third-person perspective by an unknown narrator witnessing the events. The story begins on a train with a man named Marshall Jack Potter and his wife. This scene symbolizes the East progressing forward and pushing themselves towards the West, “The Great train was rushing forward such a steady dignity of motion that a glance of the window seemed simply to prove that the flatlands of Texas were pouring towards the East.” The train also represents the color yellow by bringing the death of the old ways and the new with what is on the train - the wife-.

Scratchy is one of the characters in the short story as a villain and he goes around shooting and now looking for one specific person- Jack Potter- who is portrayed as the hero in the story. When Potter and his wife are back home, he is faced with Scratchy with his guns. The only thing Potter cared about was protecting his wife from him. This scene shows the old way they would handle things in the old West but now Potter is portraying the new way. So, Potter stayed calm and explained that he did not have his gun and that if Scratchy wanted to hurt him he could because he had the opportunity to, but Potter is not armed and is trying to come back to his town in a new light with his wife. This scene is a symbol of the old west changing. Once Scratchy puts his gun down and realizes Potter is now a married man, he sees light in him that he cannot change and he accepts the new change. The bride also symbolizes the changes coming to the town. Crane does not give her a name in the story and that is the purpose of her only showing the representation of the new Eastern order and not to distract the reader from the rest of the story, that is why Crane only named two characters in the whole story.

How she arrives into the story in the parlor car and how it contrasts with her clothing, represents her new life as a wife instead of a cook. This makes the bride uncomfortable because she is not yet ready for change either. She feels misplaced in the new town of the West and feels as if people just keep staring but this is another adaption of change they are coming to terms with.

The characters in the story all play an important role in the different types of ways people approach the changes in the new society.