Geoff- Post 6

Alright, pages 108 to 139 are down... I still need to do all those questions. AP test tomorrow...eww. Anyway, here it is.

Just a comment (I think this was earlier): I'm glad Night Swan has left the plot. I'd had enough of the scandalous part of the novel.

The passage opens with a description of the town of Gallup and the homeless camp in the gully. It seems obvious this is a flashback of Tayo as a child; we gain some insight to his mother's "occupation" during the retelling, as well as a message about the evils of alcohol. Indians, stereotypically, drink a lot, so "the ones (women) who would go down for a half bottle of wine" (111) are predictable characters. Silko always seems to refer to the lowlives in Gallup as drunk, implying a derogatory message about alcohol. I'm not sure what type of message Silko is trying to send about law enforcement; on the one hand, the police clean up the gully every so often, hauling away miscreants, but Tayo hides from what he considers scary men when the police come. A quote: "He found two quarters and tossed themi into the man's outstretched hands, swaying above his head, and both the man and the woman dropped to their knees in the sand to find them." (114). I think this says a lot about Tayo's character; he is too sympathetic. This is evident when the poor man and woman stumble off to wait for the bar to open. This trait of his is also evident in his sympathy to Japanese soldiers- this sympathy is not in his best interest.
We are also introduced to the character Betonie, who carries on a lesson (supposedly) taught by Night Swan's encounter. " 'I have made changes in the rituals. The people mistrust this greatly, but only this growth keeps the ceremonies strong.' " (126). The author teaches that change is a natural part of life, and that everything is subject to change. I understand the author's point, but I do believe there are some things that never change; some things are universal to all people and times. I also like Betonie's perspective about his choice of living space; the town is out of place, after all! I'm still not sure what the significance of all the junk in Betonie's house is; maybe he's just a packrat.
I thought the poem at the end of the story was sort of unsettling; I never thought of myself as "like the belly of a fish/ covered with hair...The world is dead to them...swarming like larvae...bring terrible diseases..." (137). I'd call this an instance of scapegoating, seeing as, after all, Tayo lives in the modern world, went to school, and is a US citizen.