Ceremony- Rewrite Essay

Tradition is the illusion of permanence. It defines who people are and gives them a place in their community; it is an expression of belonging and individuality at the same time. In Ceremony, Leslie Marmon Silko exposes throughout the novel many Native American characters. Some follow the traditions and others are ashamed of them. Silko expresses that only the ones that follow them are the ones that find themselves. They know who they are and are stronger and wiser. Because of this, they are the ones that will survive in this horrible modern world. Tayo is a boy that is proud of his origins and follows the traditions of his tribe. Rocky, on the contrary, tries to avoid the traditions and follow the white ways. Consequently, he thinks it will give him an advantage. He considers that white people are better. Both boys are influenced by their family and events that occur during their childhood. Both Rocky’s parents are Native Americans. Auntie, his mother, is one of the most negative characters in the novel. She does not follow the morals of the Native Americans; she is instead Christian and is close-minded. She influences Rocky to the white ways; she is the one that tries to make everything possible for Rocky’s success as a white. She even takes him to white school. â€Å"You drink like an Indian, and you’re crazy like one too—but you aren ´t shit, white trash. You love the Japs the way your mother loved to screw white men.† Tayo is the child of a Native American woman and an uncertain white f ather. Tayo is bullied by this all the time since he was young. In school, he said â€Å"Mexican eyes, the other kids used to tease me.† Tayo’s mother name is Laura. Laura was confused with the mixing of both cultures and ends up being ashamed of both. In addition she becomes an alcoholic and abandons Tayo. People assault Tayo for looking different. They accuse him of thinking he is better because he is half- white. In contrast, he tries to fit in and be accepted in his community. He feels rejected. Native Americans live together, all with their brothers and sisters. Auntie is bother when Tayo shows up in her house. Grandma and Josiah do not because they are accustomed to live all together. Auntie raises Rocky and makes him her own way. On the other hand, Tayo is raise by Josiah and Grandma. They teach him the traditions and storytelling. The key is there, that makes Tayo and Rocky different: the way they are raise. It develops their feelings for their origins and makes them proud or ashamed of where they belong and who they are. Also, when Tayo and Auntie are alone she makes it clear that he is different in a wrong way. Auntie wants no success for Tayo, only for Rocky. This makes Tayo feels like an outsider in the family and gives the sentiment of not belonging anywhere, but he never loses faith. Yet, family motivates Rocky to act white. Tayo has to make an effort to be noticed in the family; he has to take care of the cattle and even decides to join Rocky in the army. While Rocky has to do nothing and family members support him the most. Going to war is something that Tayo does for belonging. It has some success; Rocky calls him â€Å"brother† and not â€Å"cousin†. In white school, teachers teach them that storytelling is pure superstition; it which is science they have to believe in. Tayo and Rocky are taught the same, Rocky succeeds and Tayo does not. Despite the fact that the teachers tell Tayo that traditions and storytelling are nonsenses he stills believes. Nevertheless, Rocky, â€Å"After their first year of boarding school in Albuquerque, Tayo saw how Rocky deliberately avoided the old-time ways. Old Grandma shook her head at him, but he called it superstition, and he opened his books to show her.† Rocky through Auntie’s previous influence, gets easily motivated by the white teachers. The teachers’ goal is to eliminate their beliefs, so Native Americans would start thinking â€Å"white†. Watching Rocky’s success in school â€Å"he listened to his teachers, and he listened to his coach†¦They told him, â€Å"Nothing can stop you now except one thing: don’t let the people at home hold you back†Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Auntie†¦wanted him to be a success. She could see what white people wanted in an Indian, and she believed this way was his only chance.† Rocky now thinks as a white man, but Tayo is still loyal to his Native American beliefs. Rocky’s decision to go to the war is driven by the goal of being as a white man and â€Å"belonging in America†. Rocky dies in war. Tayo and friends that attended white school together come back. All of them are suffering from an internal conflict, post traumatic effect. Tayo wants to cure himself and starts a traditional ceremony. The other men are like Rocky, they want to be white and reject their own culture. â€Å"So they tried to sink the loss in booze, and silence their grief with war stories about their courage, defending the land they had already lost.† The ones that are like Rocky, consequently, automedicate themselves with alcohol because they believe in nothing else. If Rocky had returned from the war he would have found in the same situation. In war they triumph, they are equally important as white men. â€Å"She looked at these Laguna guys. They had been treated first class once, with their uniforms. As long as there had been a war and the white people were afraid of the Japs and Hitler.† Without their uniforms, without being recognized as American soldiers, the Native Americans are again found discrimination. So they drink even more to remember that belonging â€Å"Here they are, trying to bring back that old feeling, that feeling they belonged to America the way they felt during war†¦ Belonging was drinking and laughing with the platoon, dancing with blond women, buying drinks†¦ They repeated the stories about good time like long medicine chants† . They are killing themselves with alcohol, the same way Rocky would do if he had back from the war. Because they prefer alcohol over medicine plants, or anything that is from their own culture. They already feel white and they like it more. In spite of this, Tayo cures himself and starts even a better life, the ceremony makes him a survivor. Leslie Marmon Silko between Tayo and Rocky shows the reader, even when Rocky is dead, how traditions can save the souls of who believe. Rocky and the other men modernize everything and eliminate their own origins. The people that they really are inside. Tayo, instead, combines the traditions and creates a new ceremony that includes white culture, but preserves the origins of the Native Americans. The other men are dead alive. Tayo is like that after the war, but ceremonies save him and make him a true survivor. Also, he has the function of a connection between the older and younger generations of Native Americans. The author concludes that in this modern and horrible world, only the ones that adapt and accept the change positively will survive and be happy. People should never forget their roots because that is what they purely are.