Critical Analysis On Ceremony
Circulation
Since I started to read Ceremony, I have been carrying a question about why the poetry keeps standing out occasionally. Eventually, I think I get the answer from the last part of the context. Just like the “Old Grandma” said, “I guess I must be getting old because these goings-on around Laguna don’t get me excited any more. It seems like I already heard these stories before…only thing is, the names sound different” (Silko 260). Then, an idea comes up, I finally realize the connection between Tayo and Laguna—the time.
According to the context, I find when Tayo was captured by Japanese in World War = 2 \* ROMAN II and endured both physical and mental torture, Laguna were suffered from the drought because Ikoa’ak’o’ya-Reed Woman went away; after that, Tayo decided to take the ceremony healing to help himself to get rid of the pain which caused by his hard experience. At the same time, Laguna were trying to ask for forgiveness from the God; at last, while Tayo was cured, went back to his tradition, and started to talk about his story, Laguna got the forgiveness, purified their home, and evil and darkness went to the end together. The story of Tayo and the legendary of Laguna are similar. For Tayo, it’s a process of growing up to find, go back to, and protect his tradition; for Laguna, it’s a course for them to learn how to cherish and resist temptation. Tayo’s story is more likely to be the present edition of Laguna’s. They lived in different time and different backgrounds, but they did the same thing—fight. Maybe the purposes were different, however, in order to achieve their goals, they both fought. They fought for their weakness, fought for the temptation and fought for the evil things which blocked their paths to destinations.
The similarity between Tayo and Laguna reminds me of the phrase “timeful world” (CP 23), which seems to be a coordinate system, the x-axis represents behavior and the y-axis represents time, there exists a helix goes up
Since I started to read Ceremony, I have been carrying a question about why the poetry keeps standing out occasionally. Eventually, I think I get the answer from the last part of the context. Just like the “Old Grandma” said, “I guess I must be getting old because these goings-on around Laguna don’t get me excited any more. It seems like I already heard these stories before…only thing is, the names sound different” (Silko 260). Then, an idea comes up, I finally realize the connection between Tayo and Laguna—the time.
According to the context, I find when Tayo was captured by Japanese in World War = 2 \* ROMAN II and endured both physical and mental torture, Laguna were suffered from the drought because Ikoa’ak’o’ya-Reed Woman went away; after that, Tayo decided to take the ceremony healing to help himself to get rid of the pain which caused by his hard experience. At the same time, Laguna were trying to ask for forgiveness from the God; at last, while Tayo was cured, went back to his tradition, and started to talk about his story, Laguna got the forgiveness, purified their home, and evil and darkness went to the end together. The story of Tayo and the legendary of Laguna are similar. For Tayo, it’s a process of growing up to find, go back to, and protect his tradition; for Laguna, it’s a course for them to learn how to cherish and resist temptation. Tayo’s story is more likely to be the present edition of Laguna’s. They lived in different time and different backgrounds, but they did the same thing—fight. Maybe the purposes were different, however, in order to achieve their goals, they both fought. They fought for their weakness, fought for the temptation and fought for the evil things which blocked their paths to destinations.
The similarity between Tayo and Laguna reminds me of the phrase “timeful world” (CP 23), which seems to be a coordinate system, the x-axis represents behavior and the y-axis represents time, there exists a helix goes up