Ceremony Essay, Research Paper

While reading the beginning portion of Silko’s Ceremony, it is rather evident that storytelling is going to be a main focus of the novel. The way that this book is set up is much different than anything that I have read before. It contains poetry sections in between longer prose sections. When these poetry sections are inserted, I sense a change of story or place in time. There seems to be alot of flashbacks by Tayo who from reading isn’t very easy to figure out. There is alot of ambiguity to this novel, you kind of have to figure things out on your own since there is no distinct story line yet, only different stories thrown in a random order. The story that is told about Tayo in the Pacific is sort of interlaced with a story of his home. The two settings are contrasted, the author makes his home out to be a very dry place where not much goes on. The jungle on the other hand pours unending rain on Tayo and when he tells of his capture by the Japanese he mentions how much he hates this rain. I think that the point of this story is to describe the struggle that Tayo had to endure while a prisoner of war. Perhaps the reason why he has these mental problems later in the reading is due to his sufferings in the jungle at the hands of the Japanese. I think that this story lays a groundwork for what is to come because it is the source of Tayo’s health problems. After reading this I realized that this character Tayo would have a major struggle ahead of him in order to erase his terrible memories of imprisonment. I believe that this was a landmark experience in Tayo’s young life because for someone to have to go through this is a shocking , life-changing experience. it helps to know the troubles that have been in Tayo’s past but these events have changed him forever and no one, including himself, can make any sense of why they have greatly affected his health. I think that Tayo doesn’t really want tell anyone what happened to

him in the war and this might explain why he has trouble talking to others or why he vomits constantly.