Alan Hodara

Mr. Hodara

Senior English

3/12/01

Leslie Marmon Silko: Storyteller

Leslie Marmon Silko was born in 1948 in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Her father is Robert C. Marmon, a mixed blood Laguna with white and Mexican forbearers. Her mother is a mixed blood Plains Indian. Silko was raised at Laguna Pueblo where she attended BIA and Catholic Schools. She graduated from the University of New Mexico in 1969 with a B.A in English. Her publications include collections of poetry and short stories, and two novels--Ceremony(1977) and Almanac of the Dead (1991) (Sands 4-5).

One idea that arises in much of the critical literature regarding Silko's writing is the Native American view of time, especially as it relates to the use of storytelling in myths and rituals. Silko employs this notion of time in works such as Ceremonyand her short story "Yellow Woman"as means of structuring her literary texts and also creating a dynamic interplay between the story, the cultural setting, and the reader. The view of time presented in these works is based on the belief that stories need to be repeated, and that such repetition can effect a communion between humans and the holy people. This recapitulation of stories is crucial to the Native American understanding of people's intimate connection to mythic realities and is the foundation for the healing rituals called chantways. Robert C. Bell , in his article "Circular Design in Ceremony," writes "The standard Native American myth pattern uses the hero-quest as a framework in which to establish prototype ceremonial procedures for curing rituals called chantways" (47). Bell goes on to show how Silko uses the Red Antway as a "likely source for ...the hoop ceremony at the middle of the book [Ceremony]" (48). Silko's faithfulness to this storyline reflects a healer's need to carefully replicate the mythic tale in his rituals in order to create identification between the patient and the hero who overcomes obstacles and restores balance. Thus "Through repetition and recapitulation, the novel itself describes a circular design going into and out of the hoop ceremony at the center of the book" (49).

This repetition of storylines reflects the way in which Native American rituals play out stories on several levels simultaneously. Carol Mitchell identifies three levels on which the story in Ceremony is to be understood--"the human plane...the socio/cultural plane... and the myth/ritual plane" (27). She notes that "among the Indians the spiritual world is one with the secular world" (27). Tayo's sickness and eventual healing reflect problems in the tribe--i.e. the difficulties of dealing with the poverty that has resulted from the loss of land and resources to white encroachment, as well as the psychic disease of low self esteem borne of years of oppression--and problems in the natural world (i.e. the drought) that result from a profound imbalance in man's relationship to his environment. Similarly, in "Yellow Woman," the protagonist's experience of being "kidnapped" takes her from the natural world into a parallel universe in which she deals with the issue of the veracity of her grandfather's belief in the Yellow Woman story. By becoming Yellow Woman, she holds the key to tribal health, returning from the mountain with a personal knowledge of the reality of myth. In both works, linear time is replaced by a cycle of movement into and out of mythic realities (i.e. stories), with the purpose of achieving healing through the balance of supernatural forces.

Carol Mitchell says of Ceremony that "the novel is itself a curing ceremony" (28). Thus, through her presentation of the Native American concept of time, Silko is attempting to recreate the effects of a healing ritual. She involves the reader in the ceremonial journey of the protagonist, and suggests a point of view--literary, political, and cultural--which might enable us to achieve a balance of forces in the modern world.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

(start new page)

Annotated Bibliography

Bell, Robert C. "Circular Design in Ceremony."

American Indian Quarterly 5 February 1979: 47-61.

Bell's article deals with the relationship between Ceremonyand the mythic patterns of Native American rituals. He shows how much of the mythic material is based on the Red Antway ceremony. He relates this specifically to the hoop ceremony and the story of the witches in Betonie's ceremony, explaining how Tayo becomes identified with the characters in the rituals in order to transform himself and achieve healing. He outlines several of the connections between characters and events in the novel and mythic figures. This is an excellent article to accompany a reading of Ceremony.

Irmer, Thomas. "An Interview with Leslie Marmon Silko."

12 March 2001 <http://jefferson.village.virginia.edu/~erben/silkoin.htm>

Thomas Irmer interviews Silko in Leipzig, Germany. His first questions deal with the relationship of Native American storytelling tradition to Silko's work. The interview is interesting because Silko talks about her interest in German and British pre-Christian story traditions and in the connection between these and her own culture. The two discuss European stereotypes of Native Americans. Finally, Irmer asks Silko about her last novel Almanac of the Dead. Silko's answers provide an excellent summary of the themes of this novel and its relationship to current political issues (e.g. CIA involvement in Central America, the drug trade, local politics in the Southwest).

Add 4 more entries...

MLA formatting from Purdue