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.