Narrative in Silko's" Ceremony" Analytical Essay by Nicky

In this article, the writer discusses that though technically told in the third person, Leslie Marmon Silko's debut novel "Ceremony" is in reality the deeply personal account of the protagonist, Tayo, a Native American with an unknown white father struggling to regain a sense of identity upon his return from World War II. The narrative voice Silko employs, though it is in the third person, reflects the confusion, grief, and struggles of the protagonist by giving the reader an explicit window into Tayo's thoughts and feelings. The writer discusses that though the novel's action is primarily devoted to telling the story of one man, in a larger sense the novel reflects the Native American struggle in the modern era, in which they must learn to balance assimilation with tradition, and the destructive tendencies of white people and white culture with the advances they have made. The writer concludes that the themes of isolation and destruction are not typical of traditional Native American myths, and are meant to show Westerners not simply the error of their ways, but the incompatibility of many Western perspectives with the way the world truly is.