Ceremony
Ceremony was published in 1977 by highly regarded Native American author Leslie Marmon Silko. It tells the story of a young Tayo, a World War II veteran who has had some major psychological damage from fighting in combat. Serving in the war had truly broken him. Aside from his recovery from the war, Tayo has it pretty rough. His white father and Indian mother is cause for the people of the reservation and even his own family, to hold a certain prejudice against him and his mixed heritage. Tayo had never met his father and was abandoned by his mother at the age of only four years old. He was taken in by his Auntie, who raised him with the constant reminder that he was different than the rest of the society that he was a part of. …show more content…
It was a time of hateful disposition towards white folks in Tayos hometown, which puts him in a rather unpleasant position, being half white. Tayo’s feeling of mixed and confused identity is terrible for him, but it is much less horrific than the condition that serving in World War II left poor tayo in. . His awareness of the connections among of all people and all things makes it incredibly difficult for Tayo to kill in a war he does not understand, in a place far from his home. His inability to understand what he was meant to do in the war only gets worse when Rocky, Tayo’s cousin, dies right in front of Tayo during combat. Tayo and Rocky were more like brothers than anything else. This is really the event that pushed Tayo over the edge. Tayo felt responsible to keep Rocky safe, feeling like a failure, losing the most important person in the world to him and now plagued with the horrors of war, Tayo goes into a state of sickness. He unable to do anything besides remain paralyzed in fear, watching the sun move through its daily positions through one tiny window. His body and soul are ill, eventually his family resorts to help form the outside world. This help comes in the form of Old Betonie, a Navajo man who performs the ceremony that eventually Tayo to complete recovery and
Ceremony was published in 1977 by highly regarded Native American author Leslie Marmon Silko. It tells the story of a young Tayo, a World War II veteran who has had some major psychological damage from fighting in combat. Serving in the war had truly broken him. Aside from his recovery from the war, Tayo has it pretty rough. His white father and Indian mother is cause for the people of the reservation and even his own family, to hold a certain prejudice against him and his mixed heritage. Tayo had never met his father and was abandoned by his mother at the age of only four years old. He was taken in by his Auntie, who raised him with the constant reminder that he was different than the rest of the society that he was a part of. …show more content…
It was a time of hateful disposition towards white folks in Tayos hometown, which puts him in a rather unpleasant position, being half white. Tayo’s feeling of mixed and confused identity is terrible for him, but it is much less horrific than the condition that serving in World War II left poor tayo in. . His awareness of the connections among of all people and all things makes it incredibly difficult for Tayo to kill in a war he does not understand, in a place far from his home. His inability to understand what he was meant to do in the war only gets worse when Rocky, Tayo’s cousin, dies right in front of Tayo during combat. Tayo and Rocky were more like brothers than anything else. This is really the event that pushed Tayo over the edge. Tayo felt responsible to keep Rocky safe, feeling like a failure, losing the most important person in the world to him and now plagued with the horrors of war, Tayo goes into a state of sickness. He unable to do anything besides remain paralyzed in fear, watching the sun move through its daily positions through one tiny window. His body and soul are ill, eventually his family resorts to help form the outside world. This help comes in the form of Old Betonie, a Navajo man who performs the ceremony that eventually Tayo to complete recovery and