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    A Study Guide for Leslie Silko's "Ceremony"
    A Study Guide for Leslie Silko's "Ceremony"
    A Study Guide for Leslie Silko's "Ceremony"
    Ebook47 pages41 minutes

    A Study Guide for Leslie Silko's "Ceremony"

    By Gale and Cengage

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    About this ebook

    A Study Guide for Leslie Silko's "Ceremony," excerpted from Gale's acclaimed Novels for Students. This concise study guide includes plot summary; character analysis; author biography; study questions; historical context; suggestions for further reading; and much more. For any literature project, trust Novels for Students for all of your research needs.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherCengage Learning - Gale
    Release dateJun 27, 2016
    ISBN9781535820578
    A Study Guide for Leslie Silko's "Ceremony"

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      A Study Guide for Leslie Silko's "Ceremony" - Gale

      3

      Ceremony

      Leslie Marmon Silko

      1977

      Introduction

      As if their near extinction, compulsory attendance at boarding schools, and constant violation of treaty rights by the U.S. Government were not enough, Native Americans were encouraged to leave the reservations for the big city during the 1950s and 1960s. Many did, but precious few were successful in large urban areas. In order to provide needed support and offer hope to these individuals, they formed political groups (Red Power, ARM, AIM, et al.). These organizations encouraged them to reject any sense of shame of their culture and assisted individuals as they waged battles in court, in federal parks, and in towns across America for their rights.

      More importantly, these actions coincided with a return of the people to their traditions. Native American activists inspired young people to learn as many of the old ways as they could. A Laguna woman who was part of this cultural renaissance became its most celebrated author.

      Already highly regarded for her poetry collection, Laguna Woman (1974), Leslie Marmon Silko became the first female Native American novelist with Ceremony (1977). The story illustrates the importance of recovering the old stories and merging them with modern reality to create a stronger culture. In the novel, a young man named Tayo, from the Laguna Reservation, returns from fighting in the Pacific. He is suffering from a battle fatigue that white medicine cannot cure. Through his struggle back to health, we learn that the way to heal the self, the land, and the people, is to rediscover the neglected traditional ceremonies and our relationship to the earth. Noted technically for her non-chronological narrative and ability to blend poetry with prose, Silko has been praised as a master novelist.

      Author Biography

      Silko grew up on the Laguna Reservation in New Mexico and is a Pueblo Indian of mixed ancestry—Cherokee, German, Northern Plains Indian, English, Mexican, and Pueblo. She reflects her diverse heritage in her writing (from the biographical notes for Laguna Woman):

      I suppose at the core of my writing is the attempt to identify what it is to be a half-breed, or mixed blooded person; what it is to grow up neither white nor fully traditional Indian. It is for this reason that I hesitate to say that I am representative of Indian poets or Indian people. I am only one human being, one Laguna woman.

      She was born in Albuquerque, New Mexico, in March of 1948. Her father, Lee H. Marmon, helped at his parents' grocery store and was a photographer for the U.S. Army. Her mother, Virginia, also worked. Left with her two sisters in the care of the village, Silko chose to spend her time with her great-grandmother, Maria Anaya, who lived next door. Other influences included Grandma Lillie Stagner, a Ford Model A mechanic, and Aunt Susie, a scholar and storyteller. The older women taught her Pueblo traditions and stories.

      When she was 6, her father was elected Tribal Treasurer and he brought home the tensions of the Laguna people: violated treaty rights; questions of identity and blood quantum; and the problems of poverty.

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