Blog #27: Ceremony Summary and Analysis

Ceremony: Summary

Author: Leslie Marmon Silko

Setting: Set after World War Two after Tayo comes home from the war taking place a Laguna Pueblo reservation in New Mexico. Some flashbacks do occur taking place in the Philippines during WW2 and other past events in Tayo's life.

Plot: After fighting in WW2, Tayo returns home to a Laguna Pueblo reservation. Once arriving home Tayo must deal with the PTSD (although that's not what the novel calls it) and to bring the rain back to his community. The first flashback appears when Tayo is fighting in WW2, he believed that he saw his uncle Josiah's face in a group of Japanese soldiers he was supposed to shoot, this led Tayo to become mentally unstable during his time in the war. After staying at a hospital to recover, Tayo is allowed to go back home to his family at the reservation. Once returning to the reservation, Tayo feels guilt for the drought occurring, believing it is his fault due to him begging for the rain to cease during the war.

Beside Tayo, other Native Americans fought in the war as well.  Harley, Leroy, Emo, and Pinkie were a few of Tayo's friends that also fought and also came home with the same mental trauma that Tayo faced. These boys only point of the difference between the white people and Native Americans, which is a big problem in Tayo's mind. To help Tayo recover from his mental troubles, Ku'oosh is called to perform a ceremony to help Tayo return to his original mental state, but it is feared that it won't work. After the ceremony, the novel opens up the events of Tayo's past. His cloes relationship with Rocky before his death, the relationship between Josiah and the Night Swan, and the cattle that Josiah and Tayo tended to. Persuaded by the Night Swan, Tayo performs a ceremony to make the rain come again. Tayo is then seduced by the Night Swan. Back in the future, it becomes clear that the ceremony to cure Tayo didn' work. He is then sent to see Betonie who is thought to be able to help Tayo more.  Learning of  Tayo problems, Betonie creates a new ceremony to help Tayo heal. Throughout this process, Tayo learns much about the Native American culture through Betonie.

With the ceremony still in progress, Tayo begins the "hunt" for his Uncle Josiah's cattle. On the way to finding the cattle, Tayo mets Ts'eh and then finds the cattle in a pasture. The cattle run away from the pasture but after honoring the mountain lion and meeting the hunter, the cattle are found again at Ts'eh's house. Finding the cattle however, does not end the drought. Tayo then returns the ranch with Ts'eh where he soon learns that Emo has sent to police after him. Tayo is able to avoid the police, however he must still run from the wrath of Emo, who has joined forces with Harley and Leroy. In order to hide from Emo, Tayo hides in a uranium mine where he discovers that this is the last step of completing the ceremony. From his hiding spot, Tayo sees Emo and Pinkie kill Harley. After making it through the night, Tayo returns to see Ku'oosh and completes the ceremony.

Significant Characters:
-Tayo- Main character of the novel, suffers through PTSD, must find a way to bring the rain back to his reservation through the completion of a ceremony.
-Betonie- Creates a new ceremony to help Tayo bring the rain back to the Laguna Pueblos, very knowledgeable in Native American culture.
-Josiah- Tayo's uncle who's death is never clear to the reader. The major father figure in Tayo's life, who continues to affect it even after his death.
-Emo, Leroy, Pinkie, Harley- Tayo's friends from the war and Laguna Pueblo that also suffer through PTSD, Emo ends up killing Harley in front of Tayo as he hides in the cave.
-Ts'eh- helps Tayo find Josiah's cattle and helps Tayo avoid the police in order for him to complete the ceremony.
-Ku'oosh- The old medicine man that sends Tayo to see Betonie, believe is traditional Laguna Pueblo culture.

Narrative Voice: 3rd person narrative, with an occasional poem in first person

Author's Style: The author uses a lot of diction and figurative language to help make the text seem more interesting and intriguing to the reader. Overall, this novel did not have a specific tone other than the changes between the different scenes of Tayo's life. This tone is mostly shown through a change in the syntax, which switches from typical poems to different forms of poems that correspond with the events occurring in the prose. Other techniques that are used are similes, metaphors, parallelism, repetition, and symbolism. The actions of characters were very clear because of the narration that was used throughout the novel. The third person narrative provides clear directions for the movement and the events occurring with the characters throughout the novel. Motifs and symbols were heavily relied on. Some of the most frequent included circles, colors, and the animals, all adhering to typical Native American customs.

Quotes:

-Quote 1- "Nothing was all good or all bad either; it depended." Probably my favorite quote of the novel. I think that it describes life perfectly and how everything is not all good or all bad, it just depends on how you look at it. I think in essence this quote is saying that life is what you make of it and if you want to find the good or bad in something you can.

-Quote 2- "Here they were, trying to bring back that old feeling, that feeling they belonged to America the way they felt during the war." This quote shows one of the main themes of the book, the importance of the need to combine the Native American and white person culture. This quote shows the desire of the Laguna Pueblo's that fought in the war to be a part of the white man's culture. Through Tayo's disapproval of this quote Silko's desire from integration can be detected. 

Theme: The integration of the Native American and white culture is very important for society to proceed efficiently.

Support of Theme: Syntax is used to show this theme quite often. Long lengthy sentences seem as if the are woven together just like that of a web that is meant to bring together the two cultures. The blurring of memories also achieves a similar effect. The hard distinction between memories is meant to show how the two cultures should blend together in order to create a complete society. Another way that Silko supports this theme is through her extensive detail of the Laguna Pueblo culture. The detail that the author goes into, shows the white people the importance of the culture in order to bring them closer together.