The Significance of Four Women in Tayo’s Life

In Ceremony, Silko explores the gender roles of women and among them were four women characters that played significant roles to the development and actualization of Tayo’s character. They were Tayo’s birth mother, Auntie, old Grandma, and Ts’eh (a Montano). Because Tayo is of mixed ancestry, half white and half Native American, Tayo discovers he has a “natural” cultural flaw imposed upon him at birth, which would linger and expand into adulthood. His lifelong desperation to belong in his family and his community exposed his vulnerabilities as an adult and a veteran who had returned from World War II. His mother left him when he was four years old and that began his sense of emptiness and abandonment. Due to the alcohol addiction and vicarious life-style of his mum he was left with his auntie, Josiah and Grandmother to raise him. “He didn’t remember much: only that she had come after dark and wrapped him in a man’s coat - it smelled like a man - and that there were men in the car with them . . . he clung to her because when she left him, he knew she would be gone for a long time (60). As she kissed him on the forehead and pushed him into Josiah’s arms, he cried because he knew she wasn’t coming back for him this time (61).

Auntie eventually raised Tayo and became the mother figure he lacked; however, Auntie reluctantly accepted this responsibility because she felt responsible to the community for the disgrace Tayo’s mum had brought to the family. Auntie was a devoted Christian who thrived on a narrow interpretation of the concept of martyrdom. In Auntie's understanding of martyrdom, she will gain the respect of her peers if she is seen to suffer for the sins of others. It is in this spirit that she raises Tayo, rather than out of any love for him. She was hesitant toward Tayo as he was not her real son and was also a “half-breed.” For Tayo, this only added to his feeling of displacement and the feeling of being invisible. Auntie would give her affection and attention to her natural son Rocky, and would intentionally make Tayo feel excluded. However when Josiah, old Grandma or Robert was there, she pretended to treat him the same as she treated Rocky. Since Rocky had been killed at combat and Josiah had passed, Tayo found himself in auntie’s hands again as she nurses him after he had returned home from war; he was all she had left (29), yet to Tayo she was just someone who looked after him.

Unlike Auntie, old Grandma, does accept Tayo as her own blood and wants only the best for him. For instance, when Grandma suggested, “that boy needs a medicine man. Otherwise, he will have to go away,” Auntie retaliated with “Oh, I don’t know, Mama. You know how they are. You know what people will say if we ask for a medicine man to help him. Someone will say it’s not right. They’ll say, ‘don’t do it. He’s not full blood anyway (30).” However, Grandma did not hesitate to let auntie know that regardless of what people thought of him, she loved him “he’s my grandson, If I send for old Ku’oosh, he’ll come. Let them talk if they want to (33).” In other words, Grandma was more concerned about the health and well being of her grandson rather than the gossip of the other tribesmen. The love and compassion demonstrated by old Grandma allowed Tayo to experience some feeling of belongingness, however not enough to make Tayo feel whole.

It is when Tayo meets and falls in love with Ts’eh, a mystical character that appears and disappears in various parts of the novel, that he completes his healing journey. The significance of Ts’eh to Ceremony is very powerful and vital to the recovery of Tayo. She lives up in the rim rock and is in tune with the land and her surroundings. Being torn between the white world and the Indian world and the unfortunate circumstances of his upbringing, Tayo lives feeling invisible and hollow inside. Ts’eh helps him to become in touch with his Indian side and to feel strength and power from the land. She teaches him the importance of certain plants, flowers, and ceremonies and how they are significant to Native American culture and survival (208). Thus, after falling deeply in love with her, Tayo begins to feel alive again.

Ceremony by Silko presented Tayo as he struggled to gain psychological wholeness in the face of various traumatic experiences, ranging from a troubled childhood to cultural marginalization and combat experiences during World War II. The novel unfolded as Tayo’s psychological recovery leads him to his rediscovery of Native American cultural practices.