Summary of Ceremony

Author: Leslie Marmon Silko

Setting: Laguna Beach, New Mexico shortly after World War II

Point of View: Third person point of view

Plot:
-After Tayo returns home from World War II he must understand/learn how to cure himself from all his anguish. He must also learn how to bring rain back to his community.
-Tayo has developed PTSD due to his loss of Rocky and seeing/hallucinting of his uncle Josiah in a crown of Japenese soldiers tht he had to kill.
-He spends some time in a Veterans Hopsital before he returns back home. He lives with his aunt and gradama because his mother fled after she had an affair with a white man.
-At the house Tayo struggles with feeling guilty for his dead uncle and Rocky and also for muttering a prayer for a drought while in the Phillipines which he thinks is the cuase fro the 6 year drought on his reservation.
-Tayo finds out that his friends foro mthe war also have the same stress disorder and relive it with alchohol. This does not really help him because suring this time his friends reminice about the days where they were given mroe improtnace when in the war. Tayo thoguh thinks about the tremendous dicimnation that the native amreicans recive from the whites.
-Just as Tayo wishes to return back to the veterans hospital his grandmother calls Ku'oosh, a medicine man. He preforms a ceremony but both fear that it will not work. 
-Tayo revets back to his past. He thinks about the summer before he and Tocky enlisted in the army. Tayo helped Josiah take care of the herd and catlle that NIght Awan urged him to buy. Tayo hears about the water ceremony and does it and the next day it rains. 
-Ku'oosh sends Tayo to Betonie who knows what happens when the white culture and the native american culture mix. Betonie must find a new ceremony and Tayo agress. 
-Tayo goes back home and begins to look for the calttle. He finds the cattle and returns home and spends the summer with Ts'eh. Ts'ehtells Tayo that the white police and Emo are after him. 
-He wuickly learns that Harley and Leroy have also turned against him. He ends up at a mine and realise that he must spend the night there in orde rfor the ceremony to be complete. 
-The ceremony is complete and Tayo returns to Ku'oosh's hosue for one more night. 

Themes: 
1. The differences between cultures 
2. Storytelling and its importance. 

Response to Course Material #8

As the AP Exam is quickly approaching, we have just finished Ceremony and have just started Fifth Business. Honestly, I found Ceremony extremely confusing and hard to follow. Even after annotating it, I have trouble understanding all the symbolism behind it. I know that I will not be using this book for the AP Exam. Hopefully after doing the "Summary and Analysis" of it I will understand it better.

Fifth Business seems to be a really interesting book. I am not very far(on page 50) but I am excited to see what it is about and hopefully understand the deeper meaning of it.

With the AP Exam right around the corner I am hoping that we do a lot more AP multiple choice practice. I am nervous that I will not due well on this section. I am less worried about the essays because we have thoroughly gone over the various aspects of it.