8. Analyze the significance of the spider web as a symbol in this novel.
The novel Ceremony demonstrates the Indian life and culture on reservations. As a whole, Indians typically seem to like to stick together. In Leslie Marmon Silko’s Ceremony, the spider web represents the delicate balance of the Indian community. Some people put stress on the threads of the web, like Tayo and the other war veterans. Others like the medicine men try to fix and heal the delicate threads of the Indian community.
When a fly gets trapped in a thread, it usually is stuck there. The Indian community likes to keep its people in the reservation, free of white people and their influences. For example, Auntie wants to have Rocky stay home, not go to the white man’s war. Other flies have means to escape the web, they create tension on the delicate web of the community when they break free. Tayo and other veterans are some flies who were tempered with by the white people, and then thrown back into the web; this created even more damage to the web. When Tayo, Harley, Leroy, and others go out drinking, the people wonder why they do this. Tayo says it is because beer is like the veteran’s medicine. When flies break away and wear down the threads of the web, the entire community is affected.
Others try to heal and fix the web. Medicine men try to heal the threads the people break; that is why they are represented by spiders, the thread-menders. Tayo is troubled, and his thread is breaking and wearing thin. Two medicine men try to help him, Betonie being the more successful one. Though the ways of the Indian ceremonies, Tayo’s thread begins to heal. He starts to feel “better” (142). The flies may break the threads, but the medicine men will fix them, and the spider web will continue to live on representing the Indian community.
This one of the other challenging (and not so great) essays i have written; again, it was a difficult book to understand.
No comments:
Post a Comment