Ceremony Part 4 Analysis

In the fourth part of the book Ceremony, Leslie Marmon Silko explains how Tayo is starting to heal from his P.T.S. caused by the war, P.T.S. from Tayo's childhood, and growth and change of people and how they conduct there daily lives. Tayo is starting to suppress his P.T.S. from the war by changing his perspective on the world. Silko conveys, "In a world of crickets and wind and cottonwood trees he was almost alive again; he was visible. The green waves of the dead faces and the screams of the dying that had echoed in his head were buried. The sickness had receded into a shadow behind him, something he saw only out of the corners of his eyes, over his shoulder." (Silko p.96) Tayo is pushing the war out of his mind, so that the P.T.S. will stop taking over him and his life. Tayo later in the chapter started to gain side effects of P.T.S. caused by a recollection of his childhood. Silko says, "Tayo felt the old nausea rising up in his stomach, along with the vague feeling that he knew something which he could not remember. The sun was getting hot, and he thought about flies buzzing around their faces as they slept in the weeds along the arroyo... He didn't know how the medicine man could look down at it every day." (Silko p.108) Tayo couldn't stand the bugs flying around his face not only because bugs are an annoyance, but also because it reminded him of his childhood. Adaptation to time change is a theme we see throughout this chapter and Betonie is a character that embraces it. Betonie says, "In the old days it was simple. A medicine person could get by without these things. But nowadays..." (Silko p.111) Since the world was changing so did Betonie and his medical procedures, unlike old Ku'oosh who believed the traditional way of administering medicine was always the right way. As you can see P.T.S isn't just caused by war, if you had a harsh childhood or another experience that scared your soul it could cause it.