Ceremony #3 Jessica

I am still really enjoying the book and as it has progressed I have more understanding why Tayos’ Auntie kept that distance from Tayo. She revolves her life around keeping the family name intact. She thinks about every little detail that people might gossip about and then turns it on her so that people feel bad for her. For example how she would be quick to correct people when they called Tayo and Rocky brothers and made herself out to be a saint for taking in Tayo when she is not fulfilling his emotional needs as a mother (or mother figure) should do. When she does this she is making her family name seem better and not worse through the situation of Tayos’ mother fornicating with a non-Indian man. I think she does this because she feels that she has to clean up her sisters’ mess and since everyone in her family does not care she feels it is her job to make the family look good. The war changed the men and I think it took away their love for their culture except for Tayo. Like now all they want to do is drink and have sex with white women. I think that the drinking is to take away their pain they feel for loosing that sense of manliness that they felt when they were in uniform and getting any woman they want. I also think the drinking is to help them forget the shame they feel in the back of their heads for being Indian, I think that they want to be another race because theirs is associated as poor and lazy and crazy because of their unorthodox healing methods. I think Tayo is the only one who has pride for his heritage. With all Rocky had going for him he did not respect his culture like Tayo did I think he was ashamed of it too. Tayo feels that he should have been the one to die, he has no bright future and not much more to offer his family the way Rocky had. I think that him being still alive tears him up inside and makes him not want to be apart of a life Rocky should be thriving in. I think that is where a lot of his guilt stems from and that is something any human feels when a family member so close dies. I think we have or will want to take someone else’s place like Tayo does in Ceremony.
Quotes!!!!
“When Tayo saw he was getting started, he looked at the eyes again; he took off his jacket and covered the deer’s head.” (pg 50)- shows that Tayo respects his culture
Personification- “The sun was down, and the twilight chill sucked the last of the deer’s life away” (pg 51)
“’Reports note that since the Second World War a pattern of drinking and violence, not previously seen before, is emerging among Indian veterans” (pg 53)