Siko’s Novel Ceremony

ENGL 2000

WA4: Silko

Siko’s novel Ceremony centers on Tayo’s struggles with “battle fatigue” and a profound sense of loss. But as a portrait of Laguna Pueblo Indians in New Mexico after WWII, it also emphasizes the significance of the suffering, violence, conformity, nature, and sacred wisdom to a Native community living in the context of white supremacy. In this essay assignment, your challenge will be to articulate one specific aspect of the novel and then develop and explore its implications.

The focus of the essay should be very specific. You might consider, for example:

• The significance of ceremonies and “stories”
• The significance of Ku’oosh’s or Betonie’s use of “Indian medicine”
• The significance of white people and whiteness in and beyond the Laguna community
• The significance of alcohol and alcoholism among Laguna veterans
• The significance of Auntie, Emo, Rocky, the Night Swan or any other minor character
• The novel’s representations of nature and landscape: rain, drought, flies, birds, etc.
• Its themes of violence, trauma, pleasure, mourning, or gossip
• Its use of poetry, stream of consciousness, or other formal experiments
• Any other meaningful pattern of rhetoric, imagery, metaphor in the novel

But even these ideas should be made as specific as possible. Above all, do not attempt to cover all aspects of the novel or even all aspects of a character or theme. Rather, work carefully with particular ideas and language from the text in order to make the most focused, specific, and useful intervention possible.

• An introductory paragraph should include the following elements (in order): 1) exemplary quotation; 2) analysis; 3) implications; 4) thesis.

• Each subsequent paragraph should begin with a single, clear, specific main claim and be followed by quoted textual support and elaboration. Each paragraph should follow logically from the previous, using a meaningful transition.

• Please do not write a conclusion or summary paragraph—let your final paragraph (and final claim) serve as a conclusion.

• You should feel free Turner or Limerick (or both) in order to support or elaborate yours claims, but this is not required.

Your analysis should strive to make an original and insightful contribution to our collective sense of some of the problems and questions raised by Ceremony Be sure to should pay particular attention to the author’s use of language. Your goal should be to explore not only what the text says but how it works. Describe complexity with clarity.