engr1b 3rd essay 1st draft

8/19/2019 EngR1B 3rd Essay 1st Draft

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Indraneel TambeEnglish R1B – 3

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The Power of Language and Storytelling in Ceremony

Leslie Marmon Silko’s Ceremony is a powerful piece of literature that explores, among

other themes, the social and psychological power of languages and stories. The novel reveals

how these lingual elements of culture are not merely tools for conveying ideas, but are in fact

dynamic agents in influencing thoughts and actions. Silko’s Ceremony demonstrates how

languages can gain agency in that through indigenous storytelling traditions, they can influence

people’s views of the world and even their mental states. One way in which the traditional stories

with which Tayo has lived much of his life—as he continues to do so—influences his view of the

world is that they shape his memories and his view of time to the point that his memories and

perception of reality lose their linear structure. However, language is also shown to have agency

in the sense that stories not only cause Tayo’s undulating view of time but also act as a cure for

his psychological afflictions.

One example in which Tayo’s perception of time is shown to be skewed is when Tayo

encounters a Japanese family at the train station and suffers from a traumatizing flashback. Silko

writes,

He could still see the face of the little boy, looking back at him, smiling, and he tried tovomit that image from his head because it was Rocky’s smiling face from a long time

before, when they were little kids together … he cried at how the world had come undone… Years and months had become weak, and people could push against them and wander

back and forth in time. Maybe it had always been this way and he was only seeing it forthe first time. (Silko 17)

The author conveys explicitly that time is coming undone when she writes that people are

“push[ing] against” the divisions of time. The concept is not only stated but also conveyed

through imagery in the form of Tayo’s memories of his recent memories of the boy from

moments before the scene mixing with his years-old memories of Rocky. The language Silko

employs here is very definite: she writes that the image of the little boy was Rocky’s face,




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without any further clarifying remarks about the truth of this statement. Her language is devoid

of any qualifiers suggesting uncertainty or hinting at the fact that time’s coming undone is all in

Tayo’s head, instead using a matter-of-fact tone that describes what is happening to Tayo’s

perception of time and memories as if they are reflecting actual events, as if the delusions

produced by Tayo’s mental illness are spilling into the real world. This use of unequivocal,

matter-of-fact language serves to augment Silko’s depiction of Tayo’s perception of time, and it

demonstrates that the undulation of time is not merely a delusion for Tayo but is rather a

representation of his reality and his view of what he perceives to be the world as it is. Indeed,

Silko then writes that, in Tayo’s thoughts, “Maybe it had always been this way and he was only

seeing it for the first time.” This further suggests that Tayo’s entire conception of reality is

undergoing a total upheaval. Here Tayo is not assuming, as would be expected, that his

perception of time and the mixing of his own memories is at least unique if not completely

flawed; instead, Tayo accepts the possibility that time coming undone is not specific to him and

is in fact a universal and inevitable fact of reality. The evidence provided by Silko thus

establishes that Tayo is not merely suffering from delusions but in fact has incorporated his

hallucination-produced perceptions of reality into his actual mental conception of how the world

actually is. The nonlinearity of time, the fluidity of events, and the mixing of memories have

therefore become part of Tayo’s own reality; they are not to be interpreted as “just” a mental

illness or a trick of the brain.

Silko also provides evidence demonstrating that it is indeed the mythological tales of

indigenous storytelling traditions that is causing Tayo’s perception of time and his memories to

become skewed. After Tayo’s realization of the completion of the ceremony in the mine shaft,

Silko narrates, “He cried the relief he felt at finally seeing the pattern, the way all the stories fit




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together—the old stories, the war stories, their stories—to become the story that was still being

told. He was not crazy; he had never been crazy. He had only seen and heard the world as it

always was: no boundaries, only transitions through all distances and time” (229). Tayo’s

epiphany about the witchery supposedly being the source of divisions of time being broken down

implies that it is indeed indigenous storytelling traditions that are causing the mixing of Tayo’s

memories and his perception of time becoming nonlinear. It is significant that Tayo says that his

perception of time in the world is in fact how it “always was,” as it suggests that not only are the

stories of Tayo’s native culture causing his perception of time to become skewed, but also they

have been a consistent and constant force shaping Tayo’s view of his environment. Therefore, it

cannot be said that the storytelling is something that Tayo is simply invoking at the last minute to

explain his hallucinations. Furthermore, Silko has given evidence throughout the novel clearly

implying that Tayo has grown up with the stories and they have been a continuous presence in

his life; for example, this is demonstrated multiple times in Tayo’s recollections of his

experiences with his schoolteachers, as Tayo continues to believe in the validity of the stories he

has been taught while his teachers try to disabuse him of these notions. Indeed, Tayo’s enduring

belief in the indigenous traditional stories further demonstrates that it is the storytelling tradition

that has skewed Tayo’s perception of time. Therefore, Silko’s novel demonstrates how language,

in the form of indigenous storytelling traditions, can shape Tayo’s worldview, specifically his

perception of time and his mental representation of his own memories. In this way, Ceremony

uses Tayo’s perceptions of time in order to demonstrate the power of language and reveal its

agency and influence.

It might seem at first glance that the mixing between memories and his nonlinear

perception of time could be taken as purely caused by psychological conditions resulting from




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war. However, as Silko demonstrates, the mixing between Tayo’s memories and perceptions of

time begins in the midst of war itself, not afterwards. Silko writes, “That had become the worst

thing for Tayo: [Japanese soldiers] looked too familiar even when they were alive” (7), thus

foreshadowing the unfolding of time in Tayo’s perception. Indeed, Silko then narrates an

experience in which Tayo looks at a Japanese soldier and sees “Josiah standing there … even

after Rocky started shaking him by the shoulders and telling him to stop crying, it was still

Josiah” (7). If Tayo’s hallucinations are the result of battle fatigue, it is not likely that they

should develop suddenly and unforeseeably in the midst of combat. Furthermore, Silko provides

evidence elsewhere, in the aftermath of the war, suggesting that Tayo’s nonlinear perceptions of

time is not due to battle fatigue. When Tayo stays at the Veteran’s hospital, he expresses a sense

of nonexistence, of being “white smoke” (13). Although he is eventually able to leave from the

hospital after being cured of his feelings of nonexistence, the event described previously: that is,

Tayo sees Rocky’s face in the face of the little boy at the train station. Battle fatigue may be the

cause of Tayo’s emotional anguish or his earlier feelings of nonexistence, but these are

independent from Tayo’s nonlinear perceptions of time. Indeed, the fact that this instance of

Tayo’s perception of time coming undone follows so promptly after Tayo’s release from the

hospital suggests that his mixing of memories and his sense of time coming undone is to be

considered as an affliction falling outside the sphere of the doctors, and therefore it is not to be

interpreted as merely the result of a psychological condition.

Not only does language shape Tayo’s memories and perceptions of time; in Silko’s

Ceremony, language—through the storytelling tradition—even serves as a cure for Tayo’s

mental anguish and general psychological illness. The idea that storytelling can serve as a

method for healing is not unique to Silko’s Ceremony. Scholars have noted the common motif of




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Native American cultures using storytelling as an essential part of healing ceremonies.

Anthropologist Edith Turner explains in “Life, Death, Humor: Approaches to Storytelling in

Native America” that the usage of storytelling traditions as tools for healing ceremonies is in fact

a widespread phenomenon, found in cultures ranging from the Inuit to those of the American

Southwest (Turner 24). Indeed, the healing power of storytelling is even documented outside of

these cultures and is considered a general fact; Turner notes, “The healing power of narrative

derives from its triggering the narrative of others” (26). Using this concept of the narrative

evoking emotions in the hearers, the process that causes Tayo to be healed through the agency of

language in the form of storytelling can be understood in a broader context. Just as Turner’s

research shows that narratives can heal through their ability to bring out the narratives contained

within the listener, the stories Tayo hears can act as triggers for his emotions. The cathartic effect

created by Tayo’s ceremony and the stories that power it are thus understood to be a reflection of

this concept of simultaneous narratives in the speaker and listener.

In this way, it becomes apparent that the stories of Tayo’s ceremony are not simply static

background elements of the novel. Through the process outlined by Edith Turner, the stories of

Tayo’s ceremony bring out the narrative within him. Throughout the novel, the stories act as

catalysts for the narrative of Tayo himself, thus fueling his progression through the stages of the

ceremony. This power that is bestowed upon the stories transforms them from mere ornaments

surrounding the primary narrative to active participants in the plot, engaging with Tayo’s own

struggle and pushing along the ceremony that will become his healer. Through this empowering

of the indigenous storytelling tradition, Silko gives agency to language by making of it an active

healing tool in the novel.

engr1b 3rd essay 1st draft

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