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Silko's Ceremony: Gender Roles - Papers Online

Silko's Ceremony: Gender Roles

In Leslie Marmon Silko's Ceremony, the gender roles of three women are significant to the development of Tayo as being half-white and half-Indian. These three women are Tayo's birth mother, Auntie, and Old Grandma. His mother left him when he was four years old and that began his sense of emptiness and abandonment. She could not bear to raise a child that brought the reservation shame by her mistake.
Auntie raised Tayo and was the mother figure he lacked. She willingly accepted to take him, but only to "conceal the shame of her younger sister (29)". Auntie was always hesitant toward Tayo as he was not her real son and was also a half-breed. For Tayo, this only added to his feeling ...

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she was just someone who looked after him.
Old Grandma, unlike Auntie, does accept Tayo and wants what is best for him. When Auntie rejected the idea of a medicine doctor because he's not "full blood", Old Grandma got angry and said that he was her grandson and why should she care what they say anyway (33). She has been around for many years and doesn't worry about what other people will say about Tayo or about their family.
The significance of Montano to Ceremony is very powerful and vital to the recovery of Tayo. She lives up in the rim rock and is in touch with the earth and her surroundings in every way. Being torn between the white world and the Indian world is what leaves Tayo feeling invisible and hollow inside. Montano helps him to become more in touch with his Indian side and to feel the strength and power from the earth.
She teaches him the importance of certain plants, flowers, and ceremonies and how they are significant to Indian culture and survival. Tayo falls ...

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Silko's Ceremony: Gender Roles. (2007, July 22). Retrieved January 22, 2025, from http://www.essayworld.com/essays/Silkos-Ceremony-Gender-Roles/68421

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PAPER DETAILS

Added: 7/22/2007 11:35:41 PM
Category: Book Reports
Type: Free Paper
Words: 532
Pages: 2

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