Interpretive Richness of Leslie Marmon Silkos Ceremony Essay -- Silko

The instructive richness of Silkos CeremonyLeslie Marmon Silkos Ceremony is the extraordinary tarradiddle of Tayo, a mixed-blood inwroughtAmerican in his long quest to regain the suffering that afflicts him and his people. The overbold iscomplex enough that it can be construe in the context of starkly different paradigms, apiece bring out significant facets of the story. For instance, in the article Feminine perspectives at lagune Pueblo Silkos Ceremony, Edith aver offers a (symbolic) analysis of the plethora ofimportant female characters in the invigorated that is based on a deliberately unicultural, Lagunaworldview on the crusade that ... western presumptions must be set aside so that they do notadversely bias or manipulate tribal structures of meaning. autochthonal premises must be allowed tostand on their own footing (309). On the other hand, Dennis Cutchins, in his article So that thenations may create genuine Indian Nativism and Leslie Marmon Silkos Ceremonyadvocat es a politico-historical interpretation of the novel as a reaction against the overwhelminginfluence of Western shade on Native American culture. This reaction, Cutchins argues,takes the form of a revision of score for the purpose of removing the Western influence andadapting ancient traditions to better serve the involve of the present, thus resolving the conflictbetween the two cultures. Cutchins interpretation therefore, is multicultural, counsel on thehistorical relationship between Western and Native American cultures and providing a paradigm(namely, nativism) that helps put it all in perspective. By utilizing different paradigms ininterpreting Ceremony, Swan and Cutchins both succeed in highlighting the many fascinating... ...nse in the context of the outside world and the history of theNative American people. The differing theses however, do not contradict each other. Rather,they complement each other by providing a more complete picture with the simultaneousconsiderat ion of socio-cultural as well as politico-historical perspectives of the novel.7 plant life CitedCutchins, Dennis. So that the nations may become genuine Indian Nativism and LeslieMarmon Silkos Ceremony. journal of American Culture 22.4 (1 Dec. 1999) notpaginated.Silko, Leslie Marmon. Ceremony. New York Penguin, 1977.Swan, Edith. Feminine Perspectives at Laguna Pueblo Silkos Ceremony. Tulsa Studies inWomens Literature 11.2 (Autumn, 1992) 309-328.Work cited from within Swan, EdithAllen, Paula Gunn. The mental Landscape of Ceremony. American Indian Quarterly.5.1 (1979) 12.8