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Silko's Ceremony

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When men are sent to war most fear that they’ll never return home but both Tayo in Silko’s Ceremony and Frank Money in Toni Morrison’s Home found their sense of home in the status of the uniforms they wore and orders they followed. Though these character’s appear to exhibit the lasting wound of post traumatic stress disorder in their daily lives after the war and are struggling to cope with there identity as a minority in America without the respect of being a soldier. The continuing effects caused by the traumatic experience of war allows for both Leslie Silko and Toni Morrison to use it to their advantage in narrating the story of these characters by their style of writing and what the characters recall or what they can or cannot remember. …show more content…

From the early chapters of Home, the reader observes Frank Money communicating with the one who his telling his story and this is a key component to the novel because there is an immediate threat to the authenticity of the story. This strategy allowed for Frank to lie about his story and also let Frank’s post war condition of poor memory recollection to come into play. Two of the most pivotal moments in the novel where Frank’s memory come into play are his remembrance of Yum-yum in Korea and his idea of what occurred in the beginning of the novel with the burial of the man by the horses. When the narrator first describes Frank’s description of his encounter with the little Korean girl, it is both what he says and what he does not that assists the reader in knowing Frank Money’s character and what the most feasible outcome of what really happened. We later discover that Frank has lied when telling this story or possibly convinced himself of a truth that was more bearable for him to live with …show more content…

Tayo is also suffering from PTSD and is struggling to accept the reality of life after war with manipulated memories and nightmares. One of the most troubling thoughts that Tayo must deal with is remembering his uncle, Josiah, amongst a group of Japanese soldiers that they had to shoot. Though him not actually being there and Tayo not saying it, this memory explains Tayo’s guilt of lacking the ability of being able to protect his family an friends which he feels he was expected to do. Whether characters like Tayo or Frank remember the memory correctly, how they remember things is equally important in explaining who they are and what the story is to them. For example, Tayo repeats to Old Ku’oosh that he did not kill anyone but Ku’oosh insists on performing a ceremony for a man who has killed someone in battle. Despite Tayo’s denial of the truth, he still accepts this ceremony knowing that he should accept this ritual. Like in Home, we rely have to rely and focus on not only the main story as it is told to us but what is not told and also the things presented that might not prove useful at the time but become significant in the future. Though instead of the character telling his story to another person, in Ceremony the incorporation of poems and prose that further exemplify the importance of Tayo’s journey of accepting Native American storytelling and cyclical nature. In

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