Leslie Marmon Silko

still practice their traditional beliefs. The protagonist, Leon, goes to the priest to ask for holy water to use at his grandfather’s burial. When asked, the priest says, “I could have brought the Last Rites… For a Christian burial it was necessary” (Silko 52). For centuries Christianity has been pushed upon Native Americans by missionaries and settlers, as a way to convert them into “modern” civilization. This quote exemplifies how the priest, a symbol of western culture, is frustrated the…

Ceremony By: Leslie Marmon Silko Ceremony is set after World War II but the stories within the book come from mythical past to the 1920. The stories set in the United States on a Laguna Reservation and the myths told are somewhere in the Philippines. Ceremony is written in third person limited and you are limited to Tayo’s emotions. However, the poems incorporated in the novel are first person. Which make the reader have to elaborate on what the others feel. The use of poems in the other…

cultural blend of races and ethnicities. Diverse countries now face problems involving political refugees, immigrants, and health concerns. Literature has accompanied this era with important contemporary writers such as Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Leslie Marmon Silko, Junot Diaz and Hanan Al Shaykh. Twentieth century author Virginia Woolf referred to these changes that modernist generations face: “All human relations have shifted – those between masters and servants,…

An Examination of the Identities of Tayo and Marji in Response to Their Environments Two timeless books, Ceremony and Persepolis, each feature completely separate characters and situations--yet manage to masterfully work together to develop the same themes. This is through the use of a person’s surroundings impacting the psychological being of him or her. However, it is important to note that both characters started the novels as pure and healthy, and only began to change as a result of the…

The Literal/ Historical aspect means what is really happening at that exact moment and where the characters are. In the novel Ceremony, Leslie Marmon Silko writes a book of historical value using a fictional protagonist by the name of Tayo. Tayo is a WW2 vet suffering from a mental ailment, Post Traumatic Stress Disorder PTSD. In this novel Tayo is a mix between a white American and a Laguna native…

The role of a kahuna in the Hawaiian culture takes on the responsibility of keeping a balance between the people and the nation. In doing so, they apply their field of expertise towards assisting the aliʻi and the makaʻāinana. In ancient Hawai’i, there were many different types of kāhuna that had a skill set that contributed or benefited the community. In this paper I will discuss the different ways a kahuna achieves this type of balance within the lāhui. These kuleana include advising the aliʻi…

The power of a good story is immeasurable. Writing can make a one laugh, cry, or invoke deep thought. But what makes a good tale? There are the basic literary elements: plot, characters, and setting but the best of stories have something special. The best of stories transport the reader into a world other than their own with people and adventures they’ve never experienced. So many writers are capable of this, some of the more prominent being J.K Rowling, J.R.R Tolkien, and C.S Lewis just to name…

Leaving the Combat Zone Picture a standing army fifty times the size of the present U.S. military. Rather than an invading apocalyptic force that would spell the end of civilization, Leslie Marmon Silko sees this as the solution to domestic violence against women in the United States. Her solution is simple and one that has been brought up before. Simply arm the millions of women in the U.S. with firearms in order to ward off any potential predators or abusers. In her essay, “In the Combat…

Leslie Marmon Silko’s novel, Gardens in the Dunes, features the story of a young Native American girl named Indigo and her journey throughout the colonial pressures of 19th Century America. In the novel, Silko emphasizes the importance of horticulture during the 19th Century. In the Sand Lizard community of which Indigo belonged, plants and gardens were held in high regard as they signified survival and an interrelationship to the earth and it inhabitants. In contrast, through the characters of…

under the dominant Western society in the United States is a common undercurrent of American history. White oppression causes various reactions within the Native American community, ranging from acceptance of assimilation to violent resistance. In Leslie Marmon Silko’s Ceremony, Emo, the direct antagonist to Tayo, represents the idea of adopting the morally controversial ideas of white culture, and his actions are the product of the Western civilization’s belittlement of Native American beliefs.…