Tayo's Quest for Cultural Identity in Leslie Marmon Silko's Ceremony A Thesis Submitted to the Central Department of English
Date
2009
Authors
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Journal ISSN
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Publisher
Central Department of English Kirtipur, Kathmandu
Abstract
In this research, an attempt has been made to analyze protagonist Tayo's quest
for his cultural identity in Leslie Marmon Silko's novel Ceremony. Tayo’s is a story of
contact with attractive but non-Laguna forces, departure from Laguna, and eventual
return to Laguna with the acquired knowledge of how to live with those forces. Being
abandoned by his mother, and humiliated by his Auntie and friend Emo for his half-
breed heritage, Tayo has an acute sense of alienation, cultural dislocation, loss and
discrimination. Consequently, he makes his quest moving from one culture to another
culture. His quest journey begins with his leaving home to join the World War II, and
ends in his homing-in. Unlike his expectation, the war gives him a traumatic
experience, which results in his psychological illness. After the failure of the white
doctors, he returns to the native culture for his cure. There, firstly he is assisted by a
traditional Laguna medicine man, old Ku'oosh and then completely cured by a Navajo
healer, Betonie. Tayo performs a ceremony in a renewed native context, which helps
him to reconcile with the native land and the spirits. With this reconciliation, Tayo
retrieves his cultural position and identity in old Laguna culture. Thus, Tayo's quest
for his cultural identity and his discovery of it is the main idea, i.e. thesis of the novel,
which has been inquired and explicitly approved in this research work
Description
Keywords
Tayo's Quest for Cultural Identity, Leslie Marmon Silko, English literature