Summary/Application Assignment

Summary:

Gloria Bird’s essay discusses the decolonization of her language and culture. Before she heads into these, Bird starts off by showing the influences of colonization on native peoples, using a song she learned as a child as an example. The possession of language is then spoken about because Bird feels like she stole the native language even though she grew up only knowing English. She feels the same way about the song itself. She feels a kinship with the white man, who stole the Indian language from the children in Silko’s grandmother’s generation though missionary work and “American” schooling. Repression of the native languages, she feels, is the essence of colonization. In this, she asks: How can one become decolonized? She argues that through literature, culture, and language people can literally unlearn things. Ceremony breaks down the Native Americans’ inferiority complex to further this point, according to Bird, and is also what she calls a piece of “critical fiction”. Ceremony is written, she argues, to show that all peoples can and are slowly becoming decolonized, or should be.

Bird shows us that Tayo is striving in the dark towards finding what is holding him back from returning to his culture once more. This thing not only holds Tayo back, but also makes him feel guilty for not being white! Guilt becomes irrevocably linked to colonization. Bird then goes on to discuss Tayo’s journey towards his own person decolonization and related that to how the current Native Americans need to accept this journey.

Bird also makes a case for how Silko addresses time in Ceremony. Silko’s use, Bird claims, of nonlinear time and space helps to further decolonize the Indians, banishing the feeling of “otherness” in the culture. It also helps her to “collapse time” to show how all things are connected; usually via the landscape, only re-enforcing the point of decolonization (the fact we are all one people). She re-tells the reader here that repression of language is the essence of colonization. Bird ends her article on the hopeful note that perhaps Indian culture will not always be seen as “other”, rather as a sibling-type of culture to the classical, colonized, American mainstream. We must be willing to see the world differently.


Application:

Bird’s essay was unique for me in its approach to how Ceremony should be looked at. It was critical, of course, but was also always finding new ways to see the novel differently. Bird gives the reader a great feel for how Ceremony tries to decolonize by questioning the fabric of the colonization model. The process is under scrutiny in her essay and she invites Native Americans to look at their culture in this new way as well in an attempt to regain what they have lost. The process of decolonization threatens not just Native American views and teachings of language and culture, but also the fact that the whites have been using the Indians somewhat as scapegoats. This process may also one day make Native American morals mesh with Americanized, colonial moralities.

What I found interesting in Ceremony was to examine the characters who do nto focus on fitting into this colonialized society (Auntie and Emo are decent examples here), but instead take an individual approach (Bentoie is a good example here) 9 and try to make their own way. I feel neither Silko nor Bird discusses this situation well and I feel that it may be a highly profitable and extremely beneficial route for these characters to take.

Racism is never directly addressed in Bird’s essay, which I found surprising because it is well-discussed in Ceremony. Racism is nearly the ultimate hurdle in the way of achieving decolonization and dispelling the feeling and stigma of being “other”. In Ceremony, when Tayo trespasses on the grounds and is caught by the armed cowboys, Tayo expresses even in thoughts the ingrained racism that exists in his world: “it was a lot of trouble just for an Indian; maybe it would be too much trouble, and they would let him go” (186). I want to shake Tayo for this. He’s better than that. They are worth more than that! Other times it is brought up in the novel , I feel like Silko only addresses it briefly, never resolves it, and then brushes it off. However, maybe this is supposed to show that it will exist even after decolonization is completed? Or perhaps she simply thinks it will evaporate? Racism is a product of colonization, not on the Native American’s side, but on the colonials’ side. Perhaps it is born of fear, because the Indians are so much more different than them or perhaps it is born because the status quo for the whites is much better now than it’s ever been and they don’t want to shake up the status quo, per se. This explains why when the Tayo, Rocky, and the others put a uniform on and fight in the war, they are no longer the subject of any racism; their hair is cut and they are not immediately recognized as being a Native American, they are simply a soldier first. Racism no longer plays a role into wht people perceive about these men.

Bird actually complicated Ceremony for me and now there’s so much information I don’t know what to do with it. I’m confused and now must re-read every part of Ceremony with a different critical view. Between Bird's complex language and her plethora of ideas, it was hard to stick with this article that was supposed to enrich my reading on Silko's Ceremony.


Works Cited:

Bird, Gloria. "Towards a Decolonization of the Mind and Text 1: Leslie Marmon Silko's "Ceremony"" Wicazo Sa Review, Vol 9, No. 2 Autumn 1993. University of Minnesota Press. 04 Jan. 2009 .

Silko, Leslie Marmon. Ceremony (Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition). New York: Penguin Books, 2006.