Ceremony Part 3 Analysis

In the third part of the book Ceremony, Leslie Marmon Silko explains how the character Emo is dealing with Post Traumatic Stress, goes into depth about skin color and how it's a neutral matter, and the struggles of racism for Rocky. Leroy, Harley and Pinkie brought up a story they thought was funny of Emo's early in this section of the book; what was funny for them was actually painful for Emo and because of Emo's P.T.S. his anger escalated quickly. Emo says,"One thing you can do is drink like an Indian, can't you? Maybe you aren't no better than the rest of us, huh?" (Silko p.55) In this context Emo is demonstrating his internalized oppression, by talking about Native Americans like less of a people as the white man does. Tayo notices how Emo views war and taking lives also in this section. "Tayo could hear it in his voice when he talked about he killing-how Emo grew from each killing. Emo fed off each man he killed, and the higher the rank of the dead man, the higher it made Emo." (Silko p.56) Silko adds this depth to Emo's character to show that Evil has no color. When Tayo and Rocky were talking to the recruiter during this section, it really brought out the racism that was just integrated into normal conversation. "Anyone can fight for America...even you boys." (Silko p.59) This quote shows how White people and Native Americans, as people, really kept themselves separate from one another. We learn a lot about the characters in this chapter while Silko seems to keep common themes in mind when developing these characters.