Four Mountain Wolves Themes

Four Mountain Wolves Themes

In "Four Mountain Wolves," Leslie Marmon Silko presents the reader with a natural setting: in a particularly cold, harsh, winter, a number of wolves journey from the north to the southwest in search of the prey that is scarce in their own habitats. These wolves represent not only the brutality, ferocity, and amorality of nature, but also the cosmic truths of being a living creature in the universe.

Nature

The natural world dominates the poem. Most of the descriptive words used in the poem draw the reader's attention to qualities in the landscape. Words such as "frozen," "deep," "belly high," "swirling," "icy," and "howling" all call attention to the wintry scenes through which the wolves travel. The wolves are driven to leave their native habitat by the particular harshness of the winter of 1973, when their usual prey—turkeys, deer, even elk—become scarce. The poem asks the reader to think about...
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