Ceremony Discussion (#4)

The telling of Tayo's story in 'Ceremony" by Leslie Marmon Silko continues on as it begins to reveal more of Tayo's past - intertwined with moments of the present. We (the readers) revisit the time he spent with Night Swan where she tells him of people's ignorance and fear towards change. "They are afraid, Tayo. They feel something happening, they can see something happening around them, and it scares them. Indians, Mexicans, or Whites - most people are afraid of change" (Silko 92) calls his night with her and how (as he did not know it yet) she was a part of the process in his healing. Later Tayo revisits some of his earliest memories - from when he was young, when his mother would leave him at the bars to leave with men. He recalls the horrible taste of cigarettes as he tried to swallow the butts, or gum from underneath the table. Tayo recalls how he would wait for his mother - at the bars or under the bridge after he cops took the people out from living under the bridge. This adds to just how much scarring Tayo has had to endure during his life. As Tayo travels it (the book) notes the conditions in which the Native people have to live in - how they live in poverty and live in fear. How there is a pattern of the collective groups of all the tribes having to live with difficulty. "This is us, too, I was thinking to myself. These people crouching outside like cold flies stuck to a wall" (Silko 99). It shows how even though the tribes may be separated - they have a common factor - the hardship which they have to endure.  One other theme that is reoccurring are the poems that appear. For example the symbolism seen in one poem talks about the story of Hummingbird and Fly (which can be interpreted as life and death). Throughout the story the flies - when Tayo kills them to shield Rocky, or the story of the green-bottle fly who asked for forgiveness - can be seen as a parallel of many things - like Tayo in his search to 'heal' himself, or the dead soldiers Tayo saw in the war.