A Marine Visit

Clay was different than I expected. He wasn't a normal guest speaker but what is normal? He didn't have a plan of what he wanted to say and he was clearly nervous. Not a lot of the presentation was about his tours and time in the military. Some of his training came up and it sounded incredible. I can't even imagine doing half of what he had to. He focused more of his talk on how to live. People like telling others what they can and can't do. Clay liked proving these people wrong. It is a great but hard way to live. I understand never giving up on what you want but proving everyone wrong is a hard task. I don't think that everything someone tells you you can't do has to be disproved. The ones that matter to the individual do. For example, if someone told me I couldn't rock climb to the top of a mountain I would agree with them. I have no desire to do it and I am terrified of rock climbing. If someone told me I could never run marathon or get into a specific college, however, I would prove them wrong. Those are things that I want. They may not be my deepest desires but I know if I tried I could reach them no matter what people say. I am stubborn that way and I think a lot of people are now. Today, so many people focus on following their own path instead of doing what others say. There are exceptions to the rule but from a young age we are trained to make our own decisions. Make our own path. I loved this point and think it is important for everyone to fight for what they believe in their own way. Clay went and fought in war but anyone can fight to prove something.

Clay also talked about PTSD. I thought he would have talked more about it because it is a large theme in Ceremony but he didn't. His story about the girl. I was talking to my table group after and we were all in awe. I completely understand why he questions what he did so much. I don't mean to say he made the wrong choice. He saved all of the strangers in the cafe and his fellow marines. It could have played out so differently if he never pulled the trigger. I don't know how I would live with myself if I was put in that situation. He said how if he had a do-over he would have gone and died with the girl. Sacrificing himself for the people in the cafe. Soldiers talk about losing part of themselves when they are forced to hurt or kill women and children. It may be the right call but they see someone they know in the person they killed. It might be their wife, son, daughter, cousin or anyone. To me this is what PTSD is. When something traumatic happens, like in war, you lose part of yourself.

Ceremony: Step by Step

Ceremony, like most novels, has multiple meanings in every passage and character. Night Swan and Josiah have huge influences on Tayo and represent much more than people he met. Night Swan on the surface is a prostitute that the village people hate. Every woman fears that her husband will visit her and them men don't respect her because to them she is only an object of temptation. She is nothing but trouble. Josiah was watched and criticized for going to Night Swan but they had something more than an affair. Through Josiah, and then Tayo, Night Swan reviles who she is. She represents confidence and independence specifically in women. Women throughout the novel are seen as objects to be possessed. Women are prizes. Night Swan isn't a prize. She slept with a married man who threatened her when his wife found out and never flinched. She calmly took his hateful comments and replied with the truth. He was just as at fault as she was but he preferred to blame her. He wanted to live in a lie but she was always the truth. There are hints that she is one of Tayo's healers in the novel and I think she helps him discover the truths he's been trying to hide underneath lies. 

Josiah is the only father figure Tayo has his entire life. Robert is there but Auntie would never let him father Tayo. Tayo feels responsibility towards Josiah and feels guilty for going to leaving Josiah with the cattle when he leaves for the war. Josiah is the bachelor and not the perfect man but he is a good one. He takes care of Tayo like the cattle. Josiah's dream is to raise the perfect desert cattle that they can live off of. He knows it will be hard but Josiah wants the cattle to teach him how to survive. Animals survive in the desert and drought and Josiah with Tayo will learn too. Josiah is Tayo's guide in life. Josiah never lies about how hard caring for cattle is going to be but he wants Tayo to help. Josiah helps Tayo see the balance in life and find his own place in it.  

Discussing Ceremony

Ceremony is one complicated novel. I am still confused but I'm slowly starting to understand. The PTS symbols are pretty obvious but the other problems Tayo isn't ready to face yet are confusing. This week I've started to understand Tayo's relationships. Tayo and Rocky could have been raised like brothers but were always separated by Auntie. She had every opportunity to take Tayo in and give him the family that he never had but she didn't. She refused to let go of what her younger sister, Tayo's mother, did. Sleeping with a white man and running off the reservation was unforgivable in her mind. Tayo never met his father and his mother left him with his aunt. He is completely alone from the beginning. I thought that Tayo's problems started with the war but he has been facing hard times his entire life. Maybe that's why he has more severe PTS than the other veterans he drinks with. 

Tayo and Josiah have an interesting relationship as well. Old Grandma and Robert are assumed to be nice to Tayo but he has no deep connection with either of them. Auntie and  Josiah are the big influences in his life. Josiah is not the best role model but he is a great man. He never marries and sleeps with Night Swan who is a prostitute but he is a good man. Auntie is ashamed of everyone in her family except Rocky but she can't through Josiah out. She hates that he has a relationship with Night Swan but she doesn't do much to stop it. Josiah is the only positive influence in Tayo's life. He teaches Tayo about the old native ways and to value all of life. When Tayo kills the flies Josiah tells him the story of the fly saving the people. Tayo feels awful and is terrified but Josiah explains how its okay to make mistakes. He tells Tayo there is good and bad in the world and he needs to live through both. Josiah is very insightful and the only father figure Tayo ever has. He is the only family that really loved Tayo as much as he loved them. Tayo wasn't that close to Grandma and Robert but he loved them. Rocky just wanted to get off the reservation and leave Tayo and the rest of his life behind. Auntie wasn't the nicest to Tayo but he understood and loved her. Through everything she did take care of him. Josiah was the only one who cared for Tayo out of love instead of obligation. 

Ceremony: The Puzzle

I am starting to enjoy Ceremony a little more. I know all of the pieces will fit together and make sense in the end but I can't help being curious. I get frustrated when I don't know what's going on. All of the different times makes it really difficult to keep straight. From what I have understood thus far there are a couple times that Tayo keeps going back to. The day he is living through currently opens with him having nightmares and taking his burrow up to a bar with his war buddy, Harley. He had to stop and take a nap on the way. Harley jokes that it's heat stroke but it's really PTS. They do get to a bar but I get confused here. Tayo goes back to a time where he tries to kill Emo for insulting him and being a mean drunk. I can't tell if Emo is at the bar at this time. Silko has shown the readers two sides of Tayo's Auntie. In the first introduction she is caring for Tayo, I assume right after the war, and in the other she is separating herself from him to keep up an image. She is ashamed of all of her family except her son Rocky. Josiah is sleeping with a Mexican woman, Tayo's mother slept and ran off with white men, and Old Grandma is blind and does nothing to defend her family.


There are so many stories and I can't be sure of the order of all of them. It makes more sense the more I read but I have so many questions. How did Tayo's mother die? When does Josiah die? Is Tayo responsible for the cattle dying? Does Auntie still distance herself from Tayo after the war and only caring for him to keep up an image or does she really change her mind about him? Every few pages leads to a new bit of information the clears up one question but gives way to twenty more. I know I'll get it but it's a hard book to read. I usually don't fall behind on the reading but this week I am. Not a lot but probably twenty pages. Going back and picking apart different sections is helping. I'm finding details that I missed the first time is it clears a few of my questions. My annotations are mostly questions and quotes I like. The theme of PTS is definitely  there but the other ones are harder to find. I like the book and I know I'll get it. I just have to catch up and wait for the ending to wrap everything up.