The Last Response to Course Materials! i.e. It's Over!

Wow. It is really amazing to think about how far I have come in the past year. This is usually the part that I hate so much about lit classes: when the teacher makes you reflect on your progress over the semester/year and write down goals. I don't know exactly why, but I have always found it to be so boring. Maybe it's the amazing class mascot that erupted from my mind in ambient speech, or our seemingly ridiculous obsession with predatory portmanteaus, but this course has shown me a lot of new ideas. Everything from the terms, the independence of our class discussions, the interesting literature that we have read, and so many more things that I am too tired to write about now, has simply redefined the way that I look at literature. I am most certainly glad that I signed up for this class, even if I was an idiot and missed the first meeting. But that was innocent baby junior Abhijit that had no idea what a paraprosdokian is; this is senioritis/nostalgia-stricken Abhijit who is freaking about that AP Exam in 2 WEEKS!!!! In short, thank you Holmes!

Anywho, what have we done in the past four weeks?

For one thing, we finished reading Ceremony! Now I can see that Holmes was 100% right when she told us that this was the most complex selection of the year. This is quite the overstatement, but it  makes Hamlet feel like a Magic Tree House book (no offense to Shakespeare, of course). In our discussions, we have found so many new points of interpretation, particularly the colors and animals. This made the theme statement all the harder, of course, and I thought that each hour had its own  interpretation of the same message, which is cool. Honestly, I would put meeting Silko on my bucket list because I still have so many questions to ask her about this book. In our discussions, we also read a series of articles, splitting them up across the entire class, which I found interesting because we were using our classmates as our own filter to pick up on the important info, with only un petit peu of Holmes' guidance. We have also started reading Fifth Business on our own, and I am really waiting for those in-class discussions because I have yet to make up my mind on this text. Then again, I also have yet to finish it.

With regards to test-prep, well we've just been diving head first. Poems, essays, selections, the whole nine yards. The blitzkrieg was definitely an interesting way to go through analyses, and I really like how we're focusing in on the thesis element of our essays. It has become very clear to me that the thesis is nearly always the hardest thing to put together, and in the context of 40 minutes, it is quite a gargantuan task to come up with a well-composed set of ideas, but I do find that it is becoming easier each time. I also thought it was very helpful to see the 2013 test. Not only was it pretty cool to see the test from just last year, but seeing the format and getting a skeletal feel (but that's better than nothing) has alleviated at least a bit of my anxiety.

Well, that's all folks! It's been quite the journey, and we're nearly through!!!

Open Prompts, Grand Finale!

For this post, I chose the 2006 prompt: Many writers use a country setting to establish values within a work of literature. For example, the country may be a place of virtue and peace or one of primitivism and ignorance. Choose a novel or play in which such a setting plays a significant role. Then write an essay in which you analyze how the country setting functions in the work as a whole.

In Leslie Marmon Silko's Ceremony, the story is set in the isolated location of a Laguna reservation, which is much more natural and isolated from the influences of modern culture. This setting is particularly important due to the importance of natural balance in the Laguna belief system, and the setting has a strong influence on the main character, Tayo. The setting works to reinforce the idea that classifications, positive or negative, are actually meaningless as all things exhibit good and evil qualities in their own way.

The primary setting of the story, the Laguna Pueblo reservation, changes along with the action of the plot in ways that highlight Tayo's transformation throughout the novel. In the beginning of the story, Tayo's prayer for no rain, resulting from his wartime experience in a muggy forest, is repeatedly mentioned with regards to his belief that his prayer has caused the drought on the reservation. Additionally, the mood comes off as depressing and torturous as a result of the arid conditions. However, as Tayo finds his place within the community and gets back in touch with the Laguna values, the setting also begins to change and show hopeful signs of life. In particular, when Tayo prays in the cave, where Tsi'tsi'inako's presence is implied, it rains afterward, which shows how the setting is tied with the characters due to their values, as well as how Tayo's journey transcends his individual experience and has ramifications for his people. Thus, the setting finds a balance just as Tayo does, urging the reader to better understand the world around them.

Tayo is also deeply influenced by the setting, which aids him on his quest to complete the ceremony. Many of the animals in the setting, such as the mountain lion and the cows, connect with the cultural values that guide Tayo on his journey. The transition from drought into rain reinforces the progress that Tayo makes, connecting him to the values that he seemed to have lost from his experience in the war, which introduced him to the values of the "civilized" Western world, which deeply contrast to the free, isolated setting of the Laguna reservation. In addition, the setting exemplifies the balance that Silko continually recommends for the reader. Many of the elements of the setting have good and bad attributes that allow the reader to connect, via Silko's heavy use of sensory imagery, to Tayo's experience in acquiring his lost balance.

In Silko's Ceremony, the primary setting of the novel, a Laguna pueblo reservation, assists in reinforcing the idea of balance in its unique natural attributes. The blend of good and bad attributes, which Tayo comes to embrace and eventually embody, serve as Silko's means to urge the reader to embrace a balance in their own life and do away with distinctions.

Ceremony: Summary and Analysis

OH MY GOSH THIS IS THE LAST SUMMARY AND ANALYSIS!!!!

De basics:

• Author: Leslie Marmon Silko; a half-Laguna author raised at Laguna Pueblo - a lot of Tayo's and other characters' experiences reflect on her own childhood as a mixed-race Indian
• Setting: The story takes place in the post WWII era on/around the Laguna Pueblo reservation in New Mexico; some flashbacks take place on the Bataan Death March in Japan during WWII
• Major Characters!

- Tayo: the main protagonist of the story. He suffers from a major imbalance caused by his experiences in the war, which have caused him to feel displaced from his niche in the community. He identifies very strongly with Laguna values, even more than many Laguna who have converted to Catholicism
- Night Swan/Ts'eh/Incarnations of the Woman: she is Tayo's counterpart. As Night Swan, she was Josiah's lover, who ends up doing it with Tayo (to be blunt) and then shows him how they are alike in that she is also a half-breed. As Ts'eh, she is a married young woman who Tayo really loves, and she comes to represent the overall female aspect that is very prevalent in the Laguna mythos
- Emo: the main antagonist. He is actually a full-blood Laguna, but completely disrespects the values of the people and spreads the influence of the evil, destructive culture that he embraced through fighting in WWII. He is stabbed by Tayo. He corresponds to the Gambler in the overarching myth of the story
- Betonie: a Navajo medicine man, who helps Tayo achieve the balance that he lost by participating in the war. He is also mixed-race and very old.
- Josiah: Tayo's primary father figure. He always supports Tayo and introduces him to the Indian culture that he ends up adopting later on

• Plot!

The novel begins at "sunrise," where Tayo wakes up within a depressing flashback that reminds him of the fact that his cousin/brother Rocky is gone. Fragmented stories connect throughout to reveal all of Tayo's past. At first, we are introduced to him in a fragile state, where he is haunted deeply by his memories of the war. He constantly throws up, and we are also introduced to the cruelty of Aunty, who never really accepted him as her own, as contrasted by Josiah, who fills the void of family in Tayo's life. It is revealed that Tayo's mother was a tramp, Tayo most likely born out of wedlock, and that his mother died when he was young, leaving him in the care of his Aunty. He tends to keep to himself, except for at the bar, where he hangs out with the other vets on the reservation. He does not get along very well with Emo, though, who has an appalling fascination with the killing that he did in the war. Tayo sees him as evil and stabs him during one of his outings in a drunken rage. This gets him sent to a mental hospital, as he is recognized as suffering from some form of battle fatigue. However, his true affliction lies deep in his soul as he has become displaced from his own culture, as revealed later on. A medicine man comes to see him at Aunty's home and provides some solace with his help, but realizes that Tayo's affliction is much deeper than he thought. This leads Tayo to Betonie, a mixed-race Navajo medicine man, who provides Tayo a new ceremony that will help him achieve balance.  After the first part, Tayo begins a journey that takes him on a hunt for the cattle that Josiah had bought when he first started a ranch, but lost when Tayo couldn't help him during the war--it is implied that Josiah may have died searching for them. Tayo finds them and is able to bring them back to the reservation with the help of Ts'eh, his companion, who is a manisfestation of the ultimate feminine aspect in Laguna culture, which also appears in Night Swan and Tsi'tsi'nako herself. Evertyhing comes full circle when Tayo evades capture by Rocky and comes to the emergence place. Here, he resists the temptation to kill Emo, and lets the evil witchery, embodied in Emo and his companions destroy itself. In the end, Emo leaves and his companions die, leaving Tayo and his family content on the reservation as he has realized his place in the culture.

Symbols:

• Laguna deities - many of the deities referenced in the poem have ties to the characters and important roles in the Laguna culture
• Mountain lion - an important animal in the Laguna mythos, and a connection to Tayo's role as Sun-father in the story
• Pollen - nature's creative power, which Tayo encounters throughout
• Water - the power that nature, and the Laguna deities hold over the land; when Tayo reconciles with this power and overcomes the aversion he developed during the war, prosperity returns in the form of rain

 Voice/style:

• Silko's style reflects a deep knowledge of the Laguna culture as well as the white culture. She draws from her own experiences as mixed race in her portrayal of Tayo in the novel. She makes heavy use of structure throughout the novel, with converging episodes that lead into a continuous plot in the end to represent Tayo's mind as well as the overarching poem that represents the plot of the novel in the form of a traditional, Laguna story.

Quotes:
"It semms like I already heard these stories before...only things is, the names sound different."
This quote reinforces the ideat that Ceremony and Tayo are deeply representative of the Laguna culture, and that the story of this novel has a profound significance that transcends cultural boundaries.

"The mountain outdistanced their destruction, just as love had outdistanced death." (there's a lot more that I liked on this page, 204)
This portrays the hope that Tayo finally embraces in the novel. He realizes that evil and good will both always be a part of his world, but that does not change the fact that he is a good person, and his values are his strength. He has nothing to atone for in being mixed race, but this gives him a deeper cultural insight that imbues him with a special balance and power.

THEME!:
In Ceremony, Silko suggests that good and evil exist in everything, and distinctions are misunderstandings of the universal balance; in realizing this, one is able to achieve a true understanding of the unity binding nature and people together.