Much like Tayo, I’ve also had friends through the years that have brought out some not so great parts of me. Granted, my friends (as far as I know) haven’t tortured, maimed, or killed, any men, which unfortunately, isn’t something we can say about Tayo’s friends. Like Tayo’s friends, sometimes my friends drink too much, and sometimes they do stupid stuff with their cars. But unlike Tayo’s friends, my friends who do that are good friends and good people, which is not something I’m sure that Tayo can say about his friends. It’s the friends that I’ve had that encourage me to compromise my morals that have the deeper connection with Tayo’s friends. It’s the friends that I’ve bullied and teased with. The ones that I’ve namecalled and harassed with.
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Much of the story does follow Tayo’s life, but it also follows the journey of the Laguna people as a whole, and more generally, the Native American experience. Multiple characters in the book discuss the importance of Tayo in an interesting way. It’s not so much that Tayo himself is an individual that’s any more important than any other, Tayo is important because of what he represents. Ku’oosh and the others are so interested in hearing Tayo’s story because it’s a story of redemption, an alternate ending. Grandma says that she’s “already heard these stores before… only thing is, the names sound different.” Tayo’s story provides an alternate ending to those stories, a hopeful ending, and ending that doesn’t end in alcoholism or suffering or death. While my story is largely about me, it’s also a story about things like the cycle of bullying, and the adolescent experience on the whole. There are parallels between how Silko uses an individual’s journey to tell a larger story, and how I wrote my story about my individual journey that is implicitly part of a larger story. My story has a happy ending (at least so far), but many adolescence stories don’t, and I hope that maybe my story can have the impact that Ku’oosh thinks that Tayo’s story will …show more content…
Tayo thought that “he was not strong enough to stand by and watch anymore” as Emo tortured Harley, but he found the strength to do the right thing. Tayo realized that if he had smashed the screwdriver through Emo’s skull that he would become “just another victim”. Tayo realized that killing Emo wouldn’t solve anything, it wouldn’t undo centuries of oppression or fix his personal problems. Luckily for me, my decision was not one on the magnitude of life and death, but I still had to choose between the potentially violent, confrontational, emotional path, on one side, and the thoughtful path on the other. I could have very easily started a fight with my friend, and it probably would have been justified, just as Tayo would have been justified in stopping Emo from brutally murdering Harley. Much like Tayo though, I came to the realization that I had made a mistake, but punching my friend and losing a friendship wasn’t going to undo what I had done, it wasn’t going to solve my problems. Both Tayo and I had prior experiences to draw on where we did take the emotionally charged, violent, path, and I think I speak for both of us when I say that we regret
Much of the story does follow Tayo’s life, but it also follows the journey of the Laguna people as a whole, and more generally, the Native American experience. Multiple characters in the book discuss the importance of Tayo in an interesting way. It’s not so much that Tayo himself is an individual that’s any more important than any other, Tayo is important because of what he represents. Ku’oosh and the others are so interested in hearing Tayo’s story because it’s a story of redemption, an alternate ending. Grandma says that she’s “already heard these stores before… only thing is, the names sound different.” Tayo’s story provides an alternate ending to those stories, a hopeful ending, and ending that doesn’t end in alcoholism or suffering or death. While my story is largely about me, it’s also a story about things like the cycle of bullying, and the adolescent experience on the whole. There are parallels between how Silko uses an individual’s journey to tell a larger story, and how I wrote my story about my individual journey that is implicitly part of a larger story. My story has a happy ending (at least so far), but many adolescence stories don’t, and I hope that maybe my story can have the impact that Ku’oosh thinks that Tayo’s story will …show more content…
Tayo thought that “he was not strong enough to stand by and watch anymore” as Emo tortured Harley, but he found the strength to do the right thing. Tayo realized that if he had smashed the screwdriver through Emo’s skull that he would become “just another victim”. Tayo realized that killing Emo wouldn’t solve anything, it wouldn’t undo centuries of oppression or fix his personal problems. Luckily for me, my decision was not one on the magnitude of life and death, but I still had to choose between the potentially violent, confrontational, emotional path, on one side, and the thoughtful path on the other. I could have very easily started a fight with my friend, and it probably would have been justified, just as Tayo would have been justified in stopping Emo from brutally murdering Harley. Much like Tayo though, I came to the realization that I had made a mistake, but punching my friend and losing a friendship wasn’t going to undo what I had done, it wasn’t going to solve my problems. Both Tayo and I had prior experiences to draw on where we did take the emotionally charged, violent, path, and I think I speak for both of us when I say that we regret