More Analysis

The couple days of new material this week we spent on the same kind of assignment. We collaborated our analysis with the entire class. Each group presented their thoughts and now we have a much deeper grasp on the novel. This is on a general but also on a specific level, by the quote. A couple passages struck me in this section, one being the encounters with Night Swan. Although it seems she is a woman who is important to Tayo just because she took his virginity, she carries weight apart from that. She also represents an awakening, and a rebirth after much time in darkness. He feels overshadowed by his being biracial because that is all he has ever known to classify himself by. Night Swan, however, helps him to wash some of that away by relating to him and showing him that there is more than the circumstances under which he was born.

Another key passage we come across in this section is describing Tayo's early life. He is passed between his mother and social workers, and learns to feel abandoned. As a very young kid he has to learn things the hard way, like when he doesn't even know not to eat cigarette butts. We see why he is so hungry for affection, and why it hurts him so much to be shut away by Auntie. He has never had a mother to love him, which is important for a child to grow emotionally. Although he receives care from his uncle Josiah, he is never really loved as he should be.

A Closer Look

This week we worked on something I had never done before. We went very in depth into the most important quotes we had read so far. Up until we did this, I hadn't realized how many different interpretations can come from a single piece of writing. Another thing I realized was how important it is to have good annotations. This is important because it makes it easier to recall what stood out to me when I read it the first time. This can be useful in writing essays or other analytic assignments. As well as giving more specific arguments, pulling these important quotes out and talking about them and presenting them also gives a better understanding about the book. This is especially important in complex books like Ceremony. 

Through this in depth analysis of the first parts of the book, what struck me most was the centrality of nature in Native Culture. In more modern times, another part of this that came up was the contrast between the traditional ways and what was being taught about science in schools. "He turned. Everywhere he looked, he saw a world made of stories, the long ago, time immemorial stories, as old grandma called them" (Silko 88). He is referring to a memory of when he was by a water pool; noticing all the little things around him. He watches plants and bugs and thinks about how his grandma used to tell him stories, and then he talks about how his teachers tried to dispel their belief in these old ways. "He had studied those books, and he had no reasons to believe the stories anymore. The science books explains the causes and effects" (Silko 87).

Reality vs Perception

Native Americans have always been portrayed to me to be ignorant. They are shown as lesser, inferior beings who should be treated as a children.