CREMONY   Term Paper ID:35868 Click to get this paper

Essay Subject: Analysis of the use of medicine to cure illness in Leslie Marmon Silko's novel ...... More...

7 Pages / 1575 Words 1 sources, 18 Citations, MLA Format $28.00 Return to List of Papers

Paper Abstract: Analysis of the use of medicine to cure illness in Leslie Marmon Silko's novel, CEREMONY. The disorders suffered by the protagnoist Tayo, and how his ailments are treated by two different kinds of medicine: traditional western medicine, and Native American medicine. Author's prespective on medicine. Paper Introduction: To understand the use of medicine to cure illness in Leslie MarmonSilko\'s novel Ceremony medicine must be regarded within a culturalcontext Traditional Western medicine is based on the belief that illnessis organically determined relying mainly on drugs and antibiotics forcures Other cultures such as the American Indian culture portrayed inCeremony tend to believe that all aspects of the self including theemotions and spirit need to be considered in treating illness In Silko\'snovel the two differing views of medicine result in a cultural Text of the Paper: The entire text of the paper is shown below. However, the text is somewhat scrambled. We want to give you as much information as we possibly can about our papers and essays, but we cannot give them away for free. In the text below you will find that while disordered, many of the phrases are essentially intact. From this text you will be able to get a solid sense of the writing style, the concepts addressed, and the sources used in the research paper. In her novel,Silko expresses the view that medicinal remedies are part of the wholefabric, one part of the interrelatedness of all things. He retreats from life and even consciousness."For a long time he had been white smoke. I don't know how long anything has been going on. But Tayo wants to be invisible; it ishis way of dealing with his illness. Betonie attempts to explain to Tayo that his ceremoniesmay be different from the traditional ones, but they are effective. He has found his identity. He recognized names" andplaces and his recovered memories give Betonie "some place to start" (121).He knows that healing powers come from many sources in the contemporaryworld. The Pueblo Indianculture attributes evils they could not deal with to witchery, and themedicine man is responsible for challenging the power of witchery, but oldKu'oosh's powers have been diminished by changes wrought by the coming ofthe white people. But Tayo's old grandma understands the situation, andtells Tayo, "Those white doctors haven't helped you at all. Betonie helps Tayo to a degree, but his ceremonies do not fully cureTayo. Work Cited Silko, Leslie Marmon. The old ways must include a curing ceremony, especiallycrucial in Tayo's case because part of his pain and guilt is caused by hisbelief that he brought the return of the drought years upon his reservationby praying for no more rain when he was overseas. "Jungle rain had no beginning or end...Tayo prayed on the long muddyroad to the prison camp...He damned the rain until the words were achant...he could hear his own voice praying against the rain" (11-12). Maybe we hadbetter send for someone else" (33). He did not realize that until heleft the hospital, because white smoke had no consciousness of itself. I just needhelp" (125). The poem entitled"Ceremony" explains that stories are "all we have to fight off illness anddeath, " and the poem, "What She Said," consists of just four brief lines:"The only cure/I know/is a good ceremony/that's what she said" (pp.2-3). This is articulated by Emo, Tayo's friend and another veteran whothinks the Indians "blamed themselves just as they blamed themselves forlosing the land the white people took. In Silko'snovel, the two differing views of medicine result in a cultural clash thatimpacts the character of Tayo. To heal both physical symptoms and the psyche,a person must be conscious of the inner and outer worlds to gain harmonywith the natural world, other human beings and the self. The insinuation is that whites cause Indianillness. Inthe Pueblo Indian culture, story telling and myth are part of the healingprocess. After hisdischarge from the VA Hospital, he returns home to the Laguna reservation,and tries to join the white world by drinking heavily with his friends whoare other Indian veterans. Traditional Native Americans believe that a curing ceremonyis necessary to heal a sick individual, and that once the ceremony isperformed, the individual is cured. The Indianapproach to illness differs from that of western medicine in that mostillnesses are thought to have a spiritual origin and therefore can only becured by contact with the spiritual world through the intervention of aholy man, a medicine man or shaman. Itfaded into the white world...." (14). Tayo becomes disoriented and sick in a world dictated by the whitepeople's way of life rather than following Indian customs. This,of course, is one of Silko's major points in the novel. She knows Tayo is out of balance and out of harmony within himselfand the outside world, and that the only way to restore harmony and balanceis a ceremony. Her partingwords to Tayo are, "Remember, remember everything" (235). Silko, however, seems to believe both worlds,Indian and white, need to be integrated to live in contemporary society.Her belief is illustrated by the two medicine men of the novel: old Ku'ooshand Betonie. In Ceremony Silko expresses the perspective that Indian and whitemust be reconciled. Old Ku'oosh tries to cure Tayo first. The second medicine man, Betonie, bridges the real and mythicalworlds. The white Army doctors advise Tayo to use only western medicine:"No Indian medicine" (34). The Army medics "called it battle fatigue and they saidhallucinations were common with malarial fever" (8). It is not only Tayo, but also the otherIndians, who don't know what to make of Betonie's changes in thetraditional ceremonies, although old Ku'oosh "thinks this man Betonie mighthelp" Tayo (116). He admits that, "There are somethings we can't cure like we used to...not since the white people came...."(38). The novel shows that NativeAmericans are more open to change than white society, especially theWestern medical establishment that feels threatened by non-Western curesand tends to dismiss them. In Tayo's journey to healing, another personage plays a key role. Whatmakes Tayo fearful is not the rain itself, but that it would make his closefriend Rocky stagger and then the Japanese would "crush (Rocky's) head withthe butt of a rifle, then it would be the rain and the green all aroundthat killed him" (11). Curing illness cannot be done alone by either group."It cannot be done alone. I don't know anything about ceremonies or these things youtalk about. But Betonie has adapted to thechanging times. The Army doctors admit, that to them, "the cause of battle fatiguewas a mystery" (31). The Pueblo Indian perspective towardmedicine is quite different. At first, Tayo doesn't know what to make of him: "This Betoniedidn't talk the way Tayo expected a medicine man to talk. "American" medicine does not cure Tayo;it just makes matters worse. They fall in love, but Montano is more than a lover and friend;she is a symbol of the powerful Corn Mother, an important figure in Pueblomythology, and she is able to give Tayo the connection he had lost with thenatural world, a significant value of the Indian belief system. Other cultures, such as the American Indian culture portrayed inCeremony, tend to believe that all aspects of the self, including theemotions and spirit, need to be considered in treating illness. The author's point of view, and hence the title for her novel, isexpressed in two poems at the start of the novel. He also says, ""I'm afraid of what will happen to all of us if youand the others (other veterans) don't get well" (38). Even though he is in apsychiatric ward at the VA hospital, the white, western cure relies heavilyon drugs that erase consciousness. We must have power from everywhere. Thisdesignation place holds true for Tayo's adult life as well. The old man triestraditional Indian cures but to no avail. Tayo tells Betonie "I'vebeen sick... Part of the clash is based on theramifications of the American colonization of Native Americans. Traditional Western medicine is based on the belief that illnessis organically determined, relying mainly on drugs and antibiotics forcures. "A medicine person could get bywithout all these (new) things" (121). Even thepower we can get from the whites" (15 ). "In theold days it was simple" he tells Tayo. He didn't actlike a medicine man at all" (118). Tayo suffers from the effects of malaria and what later came to betermed Post-Traumatic Stress Syndrome (PTSD).His condition is both medicaland psychiatric. Silko shows how the Veterans Administration doctors are wrong both intheir attitude and their treatment. Hemeets a Montano woman named Ts'eh who lives in a remote spot in closecontact with nature and the healing power of plants and other naturalobjects. Betonie's method is in contrast to the white Army doctors whodischarge Tayo from the VA hospital and send him home when they realizethey could not cure him. The whiteschools Tayo was forced to attend, the Army, the doctors and the VAHospital, all try to convince Tayo that the Native American traditions areincorrect. The author, however, does not sharethis view; Silko wants to bring Tayo out of his white smoke-like state tofind the means to re-establish his identity. That someone else is "a medicine man"(33). Ceremony. For example, he keeps old Santa Fe calendars for thepurpose of re-awakening memories and connections, and it works. They never thought to blame whitepeople for any of it; they wanted white people for their friends..." (43).The result of this kind of thinking is self-hatred-blaming the victimrather than the victimizer. Tayo, at this point, islooking for any kind of remedy that can help him. To understand the use of medicine to cure illness in Leslie MarmonSilko's 1977 novel Ceremony, medicine must be regarded within a culturalcontext. Rituals such as oldstories told and retold, myths and ceremonies can bring health as shown inTayo's journey to resolve his conflicts and achieve health. Western medicine makes matters worse for Tayocuring neither his emotional or physical ailments. And he does.Tayo goes off by himself and invents his own ceremony, a ceremony that endsthe drought by bringing rain to his people as well as a cure to hisillness. New York: The Viking Press, 1977. Their "cure" was to keep him heavily sedated incontrast to Betonie's "cure" that emphasizes memory and a re-connection tothe old ways. European colonizersand later Americans devalued Native American culture, and treated them likelesser human beings. The belief system holds that the sacredand secular are one whole, integrating religion into everything includingmedicine and healing. "Tayostudied the pictures and names on the calendars. In effect, the Army doctor is telling Tayo toreject his native pueblo culture; the insinuation is that it is an inferiorculture, and from the doctor's dominant culture perspective, a culture withno merit or knowledge of real medicine or how the human body works. Their excessive drinking leads to violence, andTayo only becomes sicker. While the malaria andPTSD are contracted when he was a soldier in World War II, his depressionand physical symptoms such as vomiting and hallucinations are also rootedin the conditions of his earlier life, and his designated place as a "half-breed"-- half Indian, half white/Mexican in American society. In Silko's eyes, Western medicine cannot cure the kind of malady Tayosuffers; only a curing ceremony can do this. If this paper is not what you are looking for, you can search again: Search for: or Click here to request an essay written just for you.

Many of our Papers can be Downloaded From This Site!

PLEASE READ THIS, IT IS IMPORTANT!

Office hours are Monday through Friday, from 9 am to 5 pm (PST). You may place orders for custom research over the phone during office hours. E-mail requests can be made to our graduate and undergraduate department any time, and will be reviewed during office hours. You may also contact customer service any time through e-mail, and we will review your message during business hours. A great many papers can be downloaded right from this site, but not all of them. If you would like to know if a particular paper is downloadable, just look in the description for: "Available for Internet Download: Y" or "Available for Internet Download: N" If you wish to purchase a paper which is NOT available for immediate download, you will need to make other shipping arrangements. Also, please be aware that these orders are processed Monday through Friday from 9 am to 5 pm (PST). If you place your order after 4:45pm on Friday, it will not be processed until the following Monday morning. We charge $8 per page for all of our pre-written reports, plus shipping (and tax for California residents). However, the highest cost of any ONE report is $136, or 17 pages. Please, take a moment. Make sure you have chosen the report you want or need BEFORE you complete your order. If you are not sure, allow us to help you. We do not offer refunds or exchanges, so it is important for you to let us answer your questions during office hours. Reports which are e-mailed or downloaded are in Microsoft Word format. We are making more reports available for e-mail delivery faster than we can update our listings. Please call to check on the status of particular reports. There are many other shipping options which are listed on the Checkout page.