In Ceremony, Tayo is lost in his own mind. He is pushed in and out of reality by his illness obtained from the war and is attempting to find his place in this world. Tayo however cannot do this because he is holding himself back. He has pushed all of this guilt onto himself for the actions that he has done, one of them being Rocky’s death. John Trudell says that “Guilt gets in the way of us being able to recognise and react to our life choices”. Tayo must learn to move on and accept what has happen. The more he blames himself, the greater his illness will become. We are all responsible for what we do in our lives so one must take control and lead him/herself down the right path.
In our lives now, everyone is focused on how they can better themselves. The cancers of the world such as greed and war fog our judgment and disconnect us spiritually from our past. We are hollow in spirit walking the land waiting for death. Tayo is in many ways like however he is attempting to connect back to his spiritual side, back to his past ancestors. He is struggling to acquire what he lost due to the pressure of his situation, not being a full blooded native american. He must accept both sides though. One cannot just accept one of the sides he is from. He must learn to combine both and own the person that he is.
We are all humans, different in many ways but countlessly similar in others. Although society wants to brand us with names and put us in groups, they cannot take away the undeniable element of our humanity. Tayo deals with this first had but in his case. he is rejected by both sides. The native american community does not accept him, nor the whites. Because of this, enormous amounts of stress and inner conflict are brought upon him. John Trudell make an amazing point in his poem. It is that “We’re the People”, all of us. The sooner we as a society realizes this, the sooner we can accept each other.
:)
No comments:
Post a Comment