3. Rayona
Rayona’s alertness and capacity for observation,
cause her to draw conclusions about people based
solely on their actions, without taking situations
into account. Rayona is constantly trying to find
her place in the world. It is more difficult since she
lacks information of her heritage. Since she has
little sense of self, and forms opinion of herself
based on what others think of her. She wants to
find a functional family, such as the one on the
letter she found.
4. Christine
To Rayona, Christine appears to be irrational and
irresponsible. But in Christine’s part of the story, her behavior
is more understandable.
Her main problem in relations is her ability to translate her
feelings into actions. Another reason she has is a problem
with Rayona. Christine passes through different stages: brave
and bold, then very religious and finally reckless.
Since Christine doesn’t make a good transition from being the
life of a party to being a mother she doesn’t, fulfill the role of a
mother that Rayona expects.
Ones Christine finds out she will die, she starts acting like a
mother.
Both the city and reservation shape her personality.
5. Aunt Ida
Most mysterious of the novel.
Christine and Rayona both know of the world she’s created for
them, but nothing of the family before.
Commits herself to withdrawing from the world, and refuses to
interact (except on her own terms), due to such betrayal by the
people she trusted.
Her silence creates confusion & misunderstanding in the lives
of her children.
Ida is an old woman, but her emotions have never
grown/changed with her. She states herself, “I never grew up,
but I got old.”
She spends everyday doing the same things and doesn’t want
to be emotionally attached to anyone.
To understand Christine and Rayona’s stories, we must read
Aunt Ida’s.
6. • Lecon – Ida’s father, who has an affair with Clara and
results in the birth of Christine.
• Clara – Christine's biological mom, but also Ida’s aunt.
• Dayton – Lee’s bestfriend
• Lee – Ida’s actual son she had with Willard.
• Sky – The owner of a gas station that helps Rayona
• Evelyn – Skys wife and cook at Bearpaw lake.
• Elgin Taylor – Christine’s husband and Rayonas father
7. Rayona’s Part
Starts in the hospital: Rayona visiting her mother Christine,
then Elgin comes and gets in an argument with Christine.
Christine says she’s going to crash the car so Rayona can
collect the life insurance.
Rayona and Christine decide drive to the reservation where
Christine grew up in Montana to see Aunt Ida.
Aunt Ida wasn’t happy to see Christine so she abandoned
Rayona there.
Rayona doesn’t enjoy the reservation, only place Rayona gets
attention is from the local mission where Father Tom
persuades her to join the God Squad.
8. She goes to a Religious Jamboree with Father tom, but before they
go swimming and Father Tom tries to get closer to her, and
embarrassed decides they should leave.
Rayona persuades him to let her go to Seattle, she doesn’t. Meets
Sky and his wife Evelyn, gives her a job at Bearpaw Lake State park.
She ends up staying for the summer with them, and makes up family
history, but once Evelyn finds out she is lying, she tells her story.
They immediately wan to take her back to the reservation but they go
to a local rodeo.
At the rodeo she takes Roxy Cree's place in riding since he's too
drunk. She wins an award for her persistence.
The horse she rode was Dayton's, who takes her home to Christine
and they argue right away. Next morning they make up and she tells
Rayona her story of when she thought the world would end.
Tw Cen MT (Body)
9. Christine’s story begins after the night the world did not
end.
Christine is very daring, until one day she loses her nerve
attempting to cross a natural bridge.
A boy named Dayton moves to the reservation and
follows Lee around, Christine decides she likes him and
tries to get at him, but Dayton rejects her because he
thinks of her as a sister.
After high school, she works in the tribal council and goes
out with many boys. She goes to live with Ida’s sister
Pauline because she got in an argument with Ida.
10. Draft for the Vietnam war begins, she persuades
Dayton to persuade Lee to enroll because it will hurt
her reputation and his chance to be the leader of the
reservation.
She leaves to Seattle, goes through many jobs.
Meets Elgin at a bar, and begins a relationship with
him. Later she is pregnant and gets married to Elgin.
After marriage they grow further apart.
Right before Rayona was born, she was informed Lee
was confirmed dead.
At the funeral, everyone blames her for Lee’s death.
Christine returns to Seattle, and her doctor informed
her she had 6 months to live.
Then the scene with Rayona starts again. She acts
normal.
11. • Starts as Ida as a young girl. Mother becomes sick and her aunt Clara comes and helps around the
house.
• One day, Ida comes home to see her mother arguing with Clara. Clara is pregnant with Lecon.
• Lecon worries about the shame it will bring, so they take her to the motherhouse in Denver and Ida
will claim it.
• Ida takes care of Christine for a while, Clara wants to take her away for adoption but Ida refuses
and legally adopts her.
• Ida’s mother dies, her father runs off, and her sister gets married so she’s left alone.
• Ida’s crush Willard Pretty Dog returns from World War II. His face is disfigured because of a land
mine. They end up living together in a relationship.
• Willards surgery bring back his good looks. His mother tells him to leave Ida now that he can get
any girl he wants.
• Ida leaves him after she hears him say that although she is not pretty nor smart, she is loyal.
• Ida is pregnant with Willards baby. When the baby is born it’s named Lee.
• One day Lee comes bragging home that he saved Christine as she attempted to cross a natural
bridge.
• When the prediction that the world would end on new years of 1960, Ida humors Christine and
follows her instructions in preparing for the apocalypse.
• New years morning, Father Hulbert stops by and the two go upstairs, and Ida begins to braid her
hair.
12. Ellen’s Letter: It become Rayona’s symbol of the perfect
family. She threw it away when she was at dinner with
her mother weeks later, a sign that she has finally found
peace in her family
Braids: references to braids are made though out the
novel. They symbolize the lives of different family’s
members. (Different parts of the story can overlap and
form a more complete picture.)
13. Finding a true identity
Finding ones place in life is a crucial element of growing
up. Growing up is a part of each persons story, and all
three women in this story struggled to belong.
14. “If you had told me, three years before, that at twenty-five
I’d be living in Tacoma, engaged to a black veteran,
carrying his child of my own will, ready to settle down-I’d
have laughed in your face. And if you told me that nine
months later in the Seattle HIS hospital I’d give birth,
married, halfway deserted, and near broke, to a slim,
dark girl, as unlike me as a baby could be, I wouldn’t
have believed it. (pg. 185)”
15. When comparing A Yellow Raft in Blue Water to the book
Fences, you see many similarities in their family conflicts.
Christine grew up without a loving mother, and in turn
treated her daughter Rayona poorly, causing another
generation of family problems.
Troy also grew up without a loving father, and took out his
anger on his son Cory, leaving Cory emotionally scarred
and unable to do what he truly wanted to in life.
In both stories, the family conflicts grew larger as issues
were not addressed properly.
