Family Themes In Ceremony By Erdrich

way” (Erdrich 46). This quote from Albertine appears to be about her mother, and is relatable to most people. Discussions such as this about characters’ families open a door between the author and the reader because they are relating. This bonding makes the reader more open to what the author is saying, and more willing to work to understand the story being told. Without the use of family issues as a theme, the reader and author would not have that bond and the reader would be less willing to try to understand the author’s story. This would close the true story of the Native American culture post-migration off to a large portion of the audience that family themes open the story up to. Using the theme of family issues to discuss the relationship …show more content…
All three novels feature mix-raced protagonists who struggle with severe depression and finding a place within their reservation because of their circumstances. Within the novels, the depression is directly linked to the struggle of the protagonists to belong. In Ceremony, Tayo is a Native American man who was educated in predominantly white schools. The novel begins shortly after Tayo returns from serving in WWII. Tayo has seen both the Native American lifestyle and the white lifestyle, and struggles to belong in either. This leads to Tayo becoming an alcoholic. Tayo’s struggle between cultures is seen in this Ceremony quote, “For a long time he had been white smoke. He did not realize that until he left the hospital, because white smoke had no consciousness of itself. It faded into the white world of their bed sheets and walls; it was sucked away by the words of doctors who tried to talk to the invisible scattered smoke... They saw his outline but they did not realize it was hollow inside” (Silko 26). Tayo does not feel as if he belongs in the army hospital, because everyone is white. Tayo is depressed in the hospital. He feels like less than a person. Tayo feels like smoke. He feels white, like everything else in the hospital, but not white enough to be a real object, to really belong there. Tayo is simply white smoke, halfway between the …show more content…
The Renaissance allowed people to see without color for the brief time they are reading. For one small sliver of time, people are just people, and the problems they face are ones we have all faced before. For one brief moment, we are all appreciating each other, where we came from, and what we are trying to do. The novels achieved this by disguising their history as universal themes in order to tell their stories to a wider audience and keep their culture relevant to modern