Ceremony

Author: Leslie Marmon Silko
Setting: Laguna Pueblo Reservation Post WWII
Significant Characters: Tayo, Auntie, Emo, Night Swan, Ts'eh

Author's Style:

• Point of View: Third Person - Limited
• Tone: Melancholic, Heavy, Hopeful
• Imagery: Colors, Elements of Nature, Very visual
• Symbolism: Connections between colors and certain subjects - each color holds a meaning behind it and the character/object that holds it also adds to the meaning. 
• Repeating occurrence of cycles and storytelling.

Analyses:

• Cultural clashes - White v. Native American (Laguna):
• Survival of Native culture
• Tayo's journey to find himself again
•  Significance of storytelling

Important Quotes:
1.) [edited]

"It seems like I already heard these stories before—only thing is, the names sound different."
     Old Grandma is reflecting upon the death of Pinkie who was murdered by Emo and his crew. This specific line shows that Old Grandma is trying to point out that history repeats itself and that human nature occurs in a never ending cycle.

2.)[edited]

"They never thought to blame the white people for any of it; they wanted white people for their friends. They never saw that it was the white people who gave them that feeling and it was the white people who took it away again when the war was over."
      These lines show the cultural confusion that the Laguna veterans are struggling with even after the poor treatment they've endured after the war. The white people never respected the Native people and only manipulated the Lagunas into thinking that they were useful in the order. After the war, Emo and the others still side with the whites, convincing themselves that they were still of some use to them and even becoming racist against his own people. This is one of the paths that Tayo could have chosen to view his culture, but instead he finds himself at the opposite end of rediscovering his own culture and uniting with nature.

Theme:
The significance of keeping one's culture alive.

The stories that are told throughout the novel contain a mixture of cultural stories that have been passed down by generation to generation while others are just written in the format of how the stories were told. These stories capture the history behind the Native American civilization and provides an explanation to Tayo on why the cultural clashes have occurred between the Lagunas and the Whites which ultimately completes his healing process of his Ceremony. Silko places an emphasis on bringing out vivid descriptions of nature along with the incorporation of formatting the stories the way they were told in order to reflect the true nature of the Native American culture.