In Leslie Marmon Silko’s landmark novel Ceremony, she provides an insightful discourse on Native American society, its culture, prejudices and legends, through the people on the Laguna Pueblo reservation in the 1940’s. Tayo, the main character, is a newly returned WWII veteran suffering from traumatic memories of the battlefield, namely his Uncle Josiah’s face on a dead Japanese man’s body. As the reader follows Tayo’s quest, or ceremony, for wholeness, another, less recognizable character becomes obvious in the machinations of the novel’s inherent plotline. “Darkness” or “evil” is presented as the tangible role, especially in the Laguna myths or creation, of a character that has deceived the world. As Tayo’s journey unfolds and he unearths
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Tayo, however, never saw people as separate which is why he saw his uncle in a Japanese man, and why he couldn’t distinguish one language from another. As Tayo sees that his Uncle Josiah is equal to any Japanese soldier who is equal to anyone on the Bureau of Indian Affairs and that all peoples of all languages are equal, the reader must come to a screeching halt and realize the enormity of the deceived world everyone lives in. Silko’s plea for togetherness is evidenced by strong statements of worldwide unity, even though the connection may be wrought by universal lies and inevitable death. She mentions the atomic bomb to say that since everyone could be destroyed by this one weapon then everyone is in the same boat so to speak.
The ideas of the novel go far beyond Laguna legends, cultural insight or even the hope of a cure, in Tayo’s case, but touch on a global sense of oneness that had hither to been covered by evil’s lie that humans are not all the same. There is a note of hope in Ceremony that now having realized the untruth, the people of the world, can advance and progress toward love and unity. In the small sense, Tayo and his community can move past their yearning to fit into the “white world” and past hatred for prior mistreatment and move toward their own betterment and
Tayo, however, never saw people as separate which is why he saw his uncle in a Japanese man, and why he couldn’t distinguish one language from another. As Tayo sees that his Uncle Josiah is equal to any Japanese soldier who is equal to anyone on the Bureau of Indian Affairs and that all peoples of all languages are equal, the reader must come to a screeching halt and realize the enormity of the deceived world everyone lives in. Silko’s plea for togetherness is evidenced by strong statements of worldwide unity, even though the connection may be wrought by universal lies and inevitable death. She mentions the atomic bomb to say that since everyone could be destroyed by this one weapon then everyone is in the same boat so to speak.
The ideas of the novel go far beyond Laguna legends, cultural insight or even the hope of a cure, in Tayo’s case, but touch on a global sense of oneness that had hither to been covered by evil’s lie that humans are not all the same. There is a note of hope in Ceremony that now having realized the untruth, the people of the world, can advance and progress toward love and unity. In the small sense, Tayo and his community can move past their yearning to fit into the “white world” and past hatred for prior mistreatment and move toward their own betterment and