Summary/Analysis of Ceremony

Characters:

• Tayo - Half white/Laguna, the main protagonist.  Mother abandoned him at age 4, never knew his father.  Feels separation from the rest of his family that was deliberately created by Auntie and struggles to find peace with his mixed ancestry.
• Rocky - Cousin of Tayo, full native blood.  Is the poster-child of assimilation and white culture; throughout the book he is characterized as rejecting Native beliefs.  Had a football scholarship to go to college and everything going for him before he died.  Son of Auntie.
• Auntie - Mother of Rocky, sister of Tayo's mother and Josiah.  Bitterly takes in Tayo once his mother abandons him and is constantly obsessing over her self-image/what the community thinks of her.  
• Josiah - Brother of Auntie, represents Native ways and acts as a father figure to Tayo.  Is very influential on Tayo's life but died when he went to the war.  
• Grandma - Auntie and Josiah's mother, seems to care less about what the community thinks because she is so old.  Events suggest she knows more than she appears to.
• Emo - Mutual friend of Tayo that is very hateful and blaming of white people.  Regularly drinks and tries to relive his days in the army; spiteful in general of Tayo.
• Betonie - A Navajo medicine man that Tayo seeks the help of.  He performs ceremonies unlike other medicine men because he believes they are always changing and are in transition.
• T'seh - A mysterious native woman that Tayo meets and falls in love with.  She is in tune with the Earth and appears/disappears which suggests she is a deity.  

Setting:

• The Laguna Pueblo Native American reservation and surrounding area, right after World War II.  Certain flashbacks take place in the jungle on an unnamed island in the Pacific and in California.

Plot Summary:

        The book is set up in a unique way, with connected traditional Native poems, flashbacks, and current events taking the place of a conventional linear story.  The story begins with Tayo at home on the reservation, struggling to sleep.  He flashes back to a time during war where he sees the face of Josiah on a dead enemy soldier, leaving him in shock and Rocky unable to console him.  The action returns to describe the land of the reservation as barren and dry.  He flashes back again to his time in a veteran's hospital in Los Angeles, with an extended metaphor comparing him to smoke.  During his stay he was disconnected from reality, drifting in and out of communication.  The story returns to the present where Tayo's friend Harley shows up on a burro and the two set off on burro and mule to the bar.  While they ride, Tayo flashes back to a time when a Laguna medicine man, Ku'oosh, tries to help Tayo to no avail.  He then remembers a time when him and Rocky hunt a deer and Rocky avoids the traditions involved.  In the present, Tayo and Harley arrive at the bar. Next, he flashes back to a time where Harley, Emo, Pinkie, Leroy, and him were at the bar.  Tayo and Emo begin to fight verbally which quickly escalates to Tayo stabbing Emo with a broken beer bottle.  After this story, the action switches to the time when Tayo and Rocky both signed up to join the army together.  Without transition, the story describes Tayo's relationship with Auntie and how he was treated growing up.  She made sure to keep a distance between him and Rocky as she saw him as a disgrace.  He then recalls Josiah's cattle breeding venture in which he consults Rocky who swears by modern science. Tayo recalls getting the cattle and branding them which becomes significant later. This segues into an introduction of Night Swan, a Mexican woman who Josiah had an affair with.  She is characterized directly and indirectly as mysterious and promiscuous who is generally looked down upon.  Her brother has the cattle involved in Josiah's venture and she gives him the idea.  Auntie and Grandma specifically disapprove because she is Mexican.  Tayo then recalls a time where he goes to Night Swan to deliver a message for Josiah and then he and her have sex.  In the present, Rocky leaves a drunk Harley at the bar.  Walking through the town, he sees a store he remembers visiting as a child and recalls various fond memories.  The store is now empty so he leaves and sleeps in a barn behind Harley's grandpa's house.
     Tayo returns home, now feeling well enough to help around the house.  As Robert takes him through Gallup he sees some homeless Indians.  An interwoven story begins about an unknown child of a Indian vagrant, who lives in destitution and has to fend for himself.  Tayo is left with Betonie, a Navajo medicine man.  At first he is frightened and unsure if he is the real deal, but he talks to him about the war and his problems and feels more comfortable.  Betonie takes Tayo to begin the ceremony with the help of a strange, young assistant named Shush.  He explains to him how white people are only an instrument of greater witchery, and the witches want Indians to blame white people.  The next day, they relocate to the foothills of the Chuska Mountains for the second part of the ceremony which involves hoops and sticks relating to a traditional Laguna story.  Throughout the whole ceremony, Betonie explains many Laguna stories and traditions.  Betonie however says the ceremony is not complete.  When Tayo leaves, he runs into Leroy and Harley who have a prostitute named Helen Jean in the car.  The four go into the bar which leads to Harley and Leroy getting drunk, and Helen Jean ditching them.  A narrative told by Helen Jean begins explaining how she got into prostitution.  Tayo returns home and he decides to look for Josiah's runaway cattle.  On his search he is invited into the house of an unknown woman whom Tayo recognizes as part of the ceremony.  The two have sex and Tayo leaves the next day with a refreshed spirit.  He sees the cows in a fenced area belonging to a white rancher and he struggles to think they could be stolen.  He cuts a hole in the fence but is overcome with fatigue, collapses, and almost gives up all hope.  He then encounters a mountain lion who leads him to the cattle.  While he is trying to chase the cattle towards the hole he is caught by patrolmen of the rancher while the cattle escape.  They eventually decide to leave him to pursue the mountain lion. When Tayo leaves he meets an Indian hunter who takes him to the woman from before's home, where they have been caring for the cattle.  Tayo leaves without the cattle and comes back with Robert to retrieve them, and both the people are gone.  Months go by and Tayo is declared "cured" by Grandma but he keeps having dreams about the woman.  By chance he finds her camped out and it is revealed her name is T'seh.  He spends the summer with her and then she tells him Emo and white police are looking for him, trying to send him back to the hospital.  T'seh has to leave and Tayo hides from place to place, evading the police.  Eventually they give up and Tayo gets picked up by Harley and Leroy.  He falls asleep in their car but soon finds out they were picking him up to deliver to him to Emo.  He runs off to an abandoned uranium mine which he recognizes as the final part of the ceremony.  Emo, Pinkie, and Leroy arrive and torture Harley, trying to bait Tayo to come out.  He resists the urge to hurt Emo and therefore resists witchery.  Emo and the gang eventually leave and Tayo goes home.  It is later revealed Harley and Leroy die in a car crash and Emo kills Pinkie and disappear.  The story ends with Grandma saying the whole story sounds familiar.

Narrative Tone/Voice/Style:

• Much of the book is very disconnected and is told through a series of flashbacks and poems.  This is to reflect the mindstate of Tayo which was also fragmented during his period of sickness.  A lot of sentences are fragmented and choppy like someone telling an oral story.

 Imagery:

• There is extensive imagery used throughout the book, describing the color, smell, taste, and feel of things.  Things are hardly ever directly described.  To contribute to imagery, Silko also makes extensive use of metaphors and similes, often relating things to the Earth.    

Symbolism/Motif:

• Direction/Wind - the wind is frequently mentioned with its direction.  Silko's exact purpose was a bit unclear to me but each direction represents something in particular that has to do with the scene.
• Storytelling - the entire book is told like a story and people are often found telling stories.
• Color - the color of Tayo's eyes can be seen again and again, emphasizing his mixed heritage.  Skin color is also often talked about to emphasize their race.  Finally, the color of all things in the book is often mentioned.  

Quotes:

• “Old Grandma shook her head slowly, and closed her cloudy eyes again. "I guess I must be getting old, " she said, "because these goings-on around Laguna don't get me excited any more." She sighed, and laid her head back on the chair. "It seems like I already heard these stories before—only thing is, the names sound different." - this is significant as it emphasizes a key message within Ceremony that stories repeat themselves.  It also contributes to the storytelling motif.
• "How did you know I'd be here?" He said, still watching the cattle. She laughed and shook her head, "the way you talk!" she said. "I was here almost a week before you came. How did you know I'd be here? Tell me that first." - this is significant as it suggests Tayo is supposed to meet T'seh by fate as predicted by the traditional stories.  It further communicates the idea that T'seh is a deity. 

Theme:

• A theme of Ceremony is that history repeats itself can be seen through the same stories again and again.  The whole book parallels a traditional story being told along the way.