Race in Silko's Ceremony

620 Words2 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Native Americans struggle for equality USA

Ceremony Throughout Ceremony, the author, Leslie Silko, displays the internal struggle that the American Indians faced at that time in history. She displays this struggle between good and evil in several parts of the book. One is the myth explaining the origin of the white man. As common in Indian cultures they create a myth to explain why the white people came to them. The author begins to show the Indians feeling of hopelessness by showing in the myth, on pages 132 - 138, that there was no way the Indians could stop the white people from destroying the Indian culture. “Entire tribes will die out, covered with jestered sores, shitting blood, vomiting blood.” (pg. 137) The myth says that the white people will cause chaos, killing their people and taking their land. That is exactly what they ended up doing. The Indians are hopeless because there is nothing they could have done because according to the myth once the Indians knew what was coming it was to late to stop it. “It’s already turned loose. It’s already coming. It can’t be called back.” (pg. 138) The White man killed many of the Indians through murder and disease. The few that were left were cramped on tiny reservations. By reading this book you can see that the Native Americans live in extreme poverty. This is brought upon the Indians by the white man who gave them dry dusty desert land that he didn’t want. Then white men do not give the Indians a chance to get out of the poverty because he bel...

Show More
Related

  • Little Bighorn Mission Command Analysis

    1599 Words  | 4 Pages

    It had previously been the policy of the American government to remove and relocate Indians further and further west as the American population grew, but there was only so much...

    Read More

  • Spotless in Leslie Marmon Silko's "Ceremony"

    1310 Words  | 3 Pages

    Cutchins, Dennis. " `So That the Nations May Become Genuine Indian': Nativism and Leslie Marmon Silko's Ceremony." Journal of American Culture 22.4 (1999) : 77-89.

    Read More

  • Mean Spirit

    1062 Words  | 3 Pages

    Although the 160 acres of land per Indian seemed generous, the land was barren and dry. The government did not know, however, that black oil seeped out of the earth, and many Indians became very wealthy because of their “worthless” pieces of land. As a result of the Indians’ wealth, hundreds of white businessmen, fortune-hunters, traders, thieves, and swindlers swarmed to the reservation to make cash.

    Read More

  • Resistance from African Americans to the Naturalization Act of 1790

    1557 Words  | 4 Pages

    ...Indians ended up in massacre. Their cultural process of doing things ended up enabled the social construction of Indians as the lowest in the social hierarchy.

    Read More

  • Lakota Woman

    484 Words  | 1 Pages

    The book “Lakota Woman,” is an autobiography that depicts Mary Crow Dog and Indians’ Lives. Because I only had a limited knowledge on Indians, the book was full of surprising incidents. Moreover, she starts out her story by describing how her Indian friends died in miserable and unjustifiable ways. After reading first few pages, I was able to tell that Indians were mistreated in the same manners as African-Americans by whites. The only facts that make it look worse are, Indians got their land stolen and prejudice and inequality for them still exists.

    Read More

  • Displacement and Mistreatment of Native Americans

    2250 Words  | 5 Pages

    The removal of Indian tribes was one of the tragic times in America’s history. Native Americans endured hard times when immigrants came to the New World. Their land was stolen, people were treated poorly, tricked, harassed, bullied, and much more. The mistreatment was caused mostly by the white settlers, who wanted the Indians land. The Indians removal was pushed to benefit the settlers, which in turn, caused the Indians to be treated as less than a person and pushed off of their lands. MOREEE

    Read More

  • Talking Back To Civilization Summary

    1150 Words  | 3 Pages

    The American Indians were promised change with the American Indian policy, but as time went on no change was seen. “Indian reform” was easy to promise, but it was not an easy promise to keep as many white people were threatened by Indians being given these rights. The Indian people wanted freedom and it was not being given to them. Arthur C. Parker even went as far as to indict the government for its actions. He brought the charges of: robbing a race of men of their intellectual life, of social organization, of native freedom, of economic independence, of moral standards and racial ideals, of his good name, and of definite civic status (Hoxie 97). These are essentially what the American peoples did to the natives, their whole lives and way of life was taken away,

    Read More

  • Cultural Healing in Leslie Marmon Silko's Ceremony

    2481 Words  | 5 Pages

    Cultural Healing in Ceremony Leslie Marmon Silko is a Native American from New Mexico and is part of the Laguna tribe. She received a MacArthur "genius" award and was considered one of the 135 most significant women writers ever. Her home state has named her a living cultural treasure. Jaskoski, 1) Her well-known novel Ceremony follows a half-breed named Tayo through his realization and healing process that he desperately needs when he returns from the horrors of World War II. This is a process that takes him back to the history of his culture.

    Read More

  • A Century Of Dishonor, By Helen Hunt Jackson

    678 Words  | 2 Pages

    To understand Jackson’s book and why it was written, however, one must first fully comprehend the context of the time period it was published in and understand what was being done to and about Native Americans in the 19th century. From the Native American point of view, the frontier, which settlers viewed as an economic opportunity, was nothin...

    Read More

  • The Indian Removal Policy

    384 Words  | 1 Pages

    were on was bad soil, once again the Indians were given the short end of the stick, and

    Read More

  • The Comanche Empire Essay

    1019 Words  | 3 Pages

    Among these well known hardships, was the loss of culture and tradition. As the New World continued to develop, the presence of European guns, alcohol, and culture, slowly began to whittle away at individuals within Native Society. “And so you see what has happened to us. We were fools to take all these things that weakened us. We did not need them then, but we believe we need them now. We turned our back on the old ways” (Tenskwatawa 1). War, disease, loss of land, are terrible atrocities to endure. But unlike these, the feeling of losing touch with one’s own history and tradition, is a helpless and somber experience. To watch as the ‘pillars’ of one’s society begin to weaken, takes a toll on the will of a human being in distinctive way, as compared to the violence that is usually thought of. “Indian country is more about the people than the land itself” (1/19). Watching the people within your country, begin to neglect the deeply rooted traditions, stories, and values that give your society its identity, is something that only the Native Americans experienced as the New World continued to take shape. This is quintessential disconnect between the challenges the Europeans and Native Americans endured. The Native Americans had no home to sail back to, no safety net to fall back on as life as they knew it

    Read More

  • Native American Reservation Life and History

    1235 Words  | 3 Pages

    Many people today know the story of the Indians that were native to this land, before “white men” came to live on this continent. Few people may know that white men pushed them to the west while many immigrants took over the east and moved westward. White men made “reservations” that were basically land that Indians were promised they could live on and run. What many Americans don’t know is what the Indians struggled though and continue to struggle through on the reservations.

    Read More

  • Commentary on Henry Green's Novel "Black"

    1368 Words  | 3 Pages

    ...ioned “roses after roses”, which would be a metaphor for the dead amidst the beautiful roses, which is quite similar to the incident about the gun and the rose, and how all the hurtful things are beneath the beautiful things.

    Read More

  • The Theme of Silko's Ceremony

    1111 Words  | 3 Pages

    The colonization of civilizations has changed the world’s history forever. From the French, Spaniard, and down to the English, have changed cultures, traditions, religions, and livelihoods of other societies. The Native Americans, for example, were one of the many civilizations that were conquered by the English. The result was their ways of life based on nature changed into the more “civilized” ways of the colonists of the English people. Many Native Americans have lost their old ways and were pulled into the new “civilized” ways. Today only a small amount of Native American nations or tribes exist in remote areas surviving following their traditions. In the book Ceremony, a story of a man named Tayo, did not know himself and the world around him but in the end found out and opened his eyes to the truth. However the Ceremony’s main message is related not only to one man but also to everything and everyone in the world. It is a book with the message that the realization of oneself will open the eyes to see what is truth and false which will consequently turn to freedom.

    Read More

  • Analysis Of The Poem Tears Idle Tears

    886 Words  | 2 Pages

    My first reason that he is talking about heartbreak is that he does a lot of reflecting and comparing of the past and present. This shows that he is nostalgic about what he had and is reminiscing about what he had that he now knows is lost forever. Even the title says that he knows his tears are wasted, they are pointless yet he cannot help them from flooding his bloodshot eyes and rolling down his puffy cheeks because

    Read More

More about Race in Silko's Ceremony

Open Document