Ceremony By Leslie Silko :: essays research papers

Ceremony by Leslie SilkoThe novel Ceremony, written by Leslie Silko deals with the actions of a native-bornAmerican youth after fighting, and being held engrossed during World War II. Theyoung mans name is Tayo and upon returning to the U.S., and eventuallyreservation life he has many feelings of estrangement and apathy towards society.The novel discusses many topics pertaining to Native Americans, through the eyesof Tayo and a few female characters. The novel is angiotensin-converting enzyme that you must decide foryourself what you believe, and why certain ideas or characters points of vieware important.When discipline the novel Ceremony, you must decide what you actually believe,and what situations were only figments of Tayos stressed mind. Many of thesesituations occur throughout the book, some are very clear and others have surreptitiousmeanings. On a whole I believed what Tayo had to say about the world from hisshoes. There are certain instinces that I know what Tayo is s eeing is completelyimpossible.In Ceremony one must decide why and how the womens perspective is of importance.I believe the reason the womens view is to put a different perspective uponeverything that goes on in the book, as compared with the perspective of Tayo.There are two women in the book who put their perspective into the story, one ofthem is the elderly mistress of Josiah and the other one is Helen jean who wenton one of the many joyrides that Harley and the others went on. These women areactually just a way for the author to explain how the rest of society viewedTayo. An example of this is when Helen Jean describes Tayo "Too quiet, and notvery friendly(161)". Another thing this allows the author to do is to show howthe War affected the young women from the reservations. She is able to show youhow Helen Jeans life was in just a few pages. Silko was able to show how theNative American war veterans looked to anyone who happened to look upon them,but that wasnt one of t hem. The perspective of the women also helped to debunka lot of the stories the men told about the war and their various conquests etc.Another item for discussion that comes up in Ceremony is what did you as a referee actually learn? Well I learned many things that I found to be interesting,