Digital Journal Prompt #5
On page 92 of Silko’s Ceremony, the Night Swan says to Tayo:
“They are afraid, Tayo. They feel something happening, they can see something happening around them, and it scares them. Indians or Mexicans or whites -- most people are afraid of change. They think that if their children have the same color of skin, the same color of eyes, that nothing is changing.” She laughed softly. “They are fools. They blame us, the ones who look different. That way they don’t have to think about what has happened inside themselves.”
In the article we are reading, “Liminality and Myth in Native American Fiction,” Karen L. Wallace writes, “[t]he characters presented in these texts occupy fluid positions within and between the cultural spheres they inhabit” (95). Wallace continues by noting that these characters “remain in the interstices of cultures yet are still able to function as liaison or at least mediator between more than one system of living” (95). Wallace is describing characters like Tayo, Betonie, the Night Swan, and others who live in between spaces, in two paradigms. In two worlds. Yet Night Swan describes the people’s reactions as fearful, reactionary, and sometimes malicious.
In this your response to this digital journal prompt, I would like you to consider a character in Ceremony that lives at the intersections of two paradigms, two worlds. Read Wallace’s article. It contains definitions and more explanations of liminality. Look at the characters in Ceremony and respond to the following,
Choose a character and consider their liminality in the story of Ceremony.
Identify a passage in the text that may portray some sense of that liminality. Type it into your response. Be sure to cite the page number of the passage, using MLA guidelines.
Explain in at least one paragraph how this character’s living in more than one world affects them in this novel. Or how do they portray it through their own words?
This digital journal post is due before class on Wednesday, September 13.
