"Buffalo Gals, Won't You Come out Tonight" by Ursual K. Le Guin

In a new year's resolve to make more use of the short stories I read (at least one a day for years now) and do something with this blog, I present the first of weekly short studies of craft in a story. I'm going to try to keep the writing around 200 words, without which constraint I can go one forever (as I did in the Karen Brown studies I did last year, two of which I posted), get burned out, and consume lots of time.  I'm not going to review the work or author.  I'm not going to give plot synopsis.  I not going to give a lot of in-depth analysis of the symbolic significance/achievements of certain techniques.  I am going to focus on the surface level of literary craft.  My goal is to have these posted on Sunday each week. 

T: “Buffalo Gals, Won’t You Come out Tonight”

A: Ursual K. Le Guin

B: The Year’s Best Fantasy: First Annual Collection, edited by Ellen Datlow and Terri Windling, 1988

Q: What makes Coyote such an instantly intriguing and memorable character? 

A: Coyote does extreme, unpredictable things that one would think demand one kind of reaction, but elicit a different response from reliable characters.  Coyote talks to her shit.  The shit talks back.  In one scene, the main child scoops up and buries all of coyote’s crap while coyote’s asleep.  When she wakes up, Coyote notices the turds are missing, calls out for them, and when they answer back: “Coyote trotted over, squatted down, raked out every turd, and talked with them for a long time” (13).  Sleeping in her flee-ridden bed, pissing and shitting anywhere, having sex with many old coyotes, including her own sons, Coyote is presented at once as both a leading figure in a community of animals and disgusting. The main character of the story (the human girl who fell out of a plane and was discovered by coyote) chooses coyote as her surrogate mother.  The formula here for Coyote’s character, then, is to compound noble thoughts and actions with disgusting ones—making for a well rounded character that verges on the repulsive side of likable—and then demonstrate how other (relatively normal) characters feel about her, balancing out the heaviness of the repulsive side of likable with characters’ affection and respect.    

Comments, thoughts, suggestions are always welcome in the comments below.  

Is there a short story that helped you understand a specific writing technique more clearly?  Please share!