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.