Ceremony

~Author~
Leslie Marmon Silko is of Native American descent, of the Laguna Pueblo tribe just like her characters in Ceremony. She is actually mixed race, with some Mexican and some White mixed in. Because mixed race identity issues are a motif of Ceremony, this should be noted.

~Setting~
Primarily around the Laguna reservation and the neighboring desert or woodsy mountain. Also a bit overseas when Tayo fights the Japanese in WWII, and occasional visits to neighboring towns (such as where Night Swan lived.)

~Plot~
*I'm going to go chronological, not necessarily in story sequence.

Tayo's mother abandons him at his Aunt's home, where he and Rocky are made to be brothers. Auntie is mean to Tayo, resentful that he is mixed race and evidence of her sister's poor choices and "betrayal" of the tribe. Tayo appreciates the Laguna values, while Rocky deviates and embraces a more 'White' lifestyle. At some point, Tayo visits his uncle Josiah's girlfriend, the mysterious and alluring Night Swan, whom he sleeps with. Josiah buys a cheap herd of cattle. Tayo and Rocky enlist for war and go off to fight the Japanese. Rocky is killed in action, leaving Tayo an emotional (and nauseous) wreck for a while. Simultaneously, Tayo's uncle Josiah dies back at home, and Tayo has visions of his face. Tayo tries to feel better by drinking with his old friends, but gets into a bar fight with Emo when he starts glorifying the war. After that Tayo avoids Emo's crowd, becoming somewhat reclusive. His family encourages him to have a ceremony done to help heal him, and he does it to appease them. As part of his ceremony, he decides to find Josiah's cows, which wandered off without Josiah to watch them. Tayo encounters a woman, Ts'eh, and becomes infatuated with her. He has sex with her and goes off to find the cows. After an encounter with a mountain lion he has to steal the cows back from a rancher. They get caught and penned at Ts'eh's cabin and he inspires Tayo before disappearing. The reservation believes Tayo to be crazy because of rumors spread by Emo. Tayo hitches a ride home with two mutual friends of his and Emo's, but they get him drunk and ditch him and the truck in the desert Tayo wakes up at night and hides before witnessing Emo torture the friend for letting Tayo escape. He nearly jumps out and attacks Emo, but doesn't. Tayo decides not to blame people, but to blame evil. His epiphany is that no group can be classified as evil and everyone is susceptible to witchery. With that, the ceremony is complete and Tayo and the earth are at peace, more or less.

~Characters~
Tayo: protagonist, indian/white, represents Laguna values sun father

Emo: foil to Tayo, evil, all indian

Night Swan, Ts'eh: mixed, reincarnations of corn mother, mysterious, wise, alluring

Rocky: a different foil to Tayo. Wants to join white community, but is all indian.

Josiah: Role model for Tayo, wants to provide for family, community

Betonie: A sort of contemporary blended with tradition medicine man, assigns Tayo the ceremony

Auntie: Bitter, judgmental, hypocrite (looks down on Indians mixing with whtes but practices white religion and acts kind of white and ignores Rocky's white-wannabe act.)

Old Grandma: Tayo's great aunt, blind and weak, but wise and versed with the traditions.

~Style~
Silko weaves the story of Tayo with poetry, broken into pieces and inserted at seemingly random times in the text. The poems tell odd little fables that highlight Tayo's situation. The reader can often identify specific characters in the ambiguous hummingbirds, gamblers, spiders, etc. of the poems. This is a unique technique that adds to the idea of Tayo's own story being legendary or that Tayo is a sort of reincarnation of a legend (i.e., Sun Father.)

The sentences are often fragmented, and fail to identify the objects of the sentence sometimes. This is deliberate to illustrate how all of life and ideas flow together and one often has to work to make sense of nature. Life is ambiguous by nature, and so her writing attempts to mimic that.

There is huge emphasis on color and directions as well, as South is associated with home and tradition and North is intruding influences. Yellow is associated with Tayo, because he is related to Sun Father.

~Motifs~
directions
animals /instincts
vomiting
flashbacks
mixed race guilt, identity issue
stereotyping
drinking (alcohol)
good v evil

~Quotes~
"Here they were, trying to bring back that old feeling, that feeling they belonged to America the way they felt during the war."

Tayo and his community are frequently putting up barriers to separate themselves from others. They pursue a feeling of universal community and belonging.

~Theme~
Silko's Ceremony suggests that one must be receptive to outside influence, and must adapt in order to achieve natural balance and peace.

~Prove it~
The mixed race characters are presented in a better light that most pure race characters. The blend of cultures provides a deeper insight and inner peace for Tayo, Ts'eh, etc.