Key Facts
full title · Ceremony
author · Leslie Marmon Silko
type of work · Novel, but incorporates poetry
genre · Native American story; postmodern
language · English (with inclusion of Laguna Pueblo words)
time and place written · Mid-1970s, New Mexico.
date of first publication · 1977
publisher · Penguin
narrator · Third person narrator limited to Tayo's perspective, in addition to third person limited and omniscient and first person narrators in the poems
climax · The night at the abandoned mine.
protagonist · Tayo
antagonist · whites; and Emo
setting (time) · The main present of the text is set just after World War II, but the text ranges in time from a mythical past through the 1920s and World War II up until that present.
setting (place) · The majority of the novel is set on and around the Laguna Reservation, in the Southwest of the United States, although portions are also set in a mythical land, and in the Philippines.
point of view · Primarily third person limited
falling action · World War II
tense · Past
foreshadowing · As time in the novel runs in a circular fashion, all events are at once foreshadowed and remembered.
tone · Somber but hopeful
themes · Storytelling; contact between Native American and white cultures; tradition; water and drought
motifs · Non-linear narrative structure; combination of poetry and prose
symbols · The Gallup Ceremonial
Context
Born on March five, 1948 in Albuquerque, new Mexico and of mixed Laguna Pueblo, white, and Mexican ancestry, Leslie Marmon Silko grew up on a Laguna Pueblo reservation. She attended Bureau of Indian Affairs Schools, and then the University of New Mexico. After a brief stint at law school, she pursued graduate studies in English, and embarked the writing career that has led her to be considered the premier Native American novelist and poet of her generation. Silko has lived and taught English in New Mexico, Alaska, and Arizona. Silko's first book was the...