Key Facts

full title ·  Ceremony

author ·  Leslie Marmon Silko

type of work ·  Novel, but incorporates poetry

genre ·  Native American story; postmodern

language ·  English (with inclusion of Laguna Pueblo words)

time and place written ·  Mid-1970s, New Mexico.

date of first publication ·  1977

publisher ·  Penguin

narrator ·  Third person narrator limited to Tayo's perspective, in addition to third person limited and omniscient and first person narrators in the poems

climax ·  The night at the abandoned mine.

protagonist ·  Tayo

antagonist ·  whites; and Emo

setting (time) ·  The main present of the text is set just after World War II, but the text ranges in time from a mythical past through the 1920s and World War II up until that present.

setting (place) ·  The majority of the novel is set on and around the Laguna Reservation, in the Southwest of the United States, although portions are also set in a mythical land, and in the Philippines.

point of view ·  Primarily third person limited

falling action ·  World War II

tense ·  Past

foreshadowing ·  As time in the novel runs in a circular fashion, all events are at once foreshadowed and remembered.

tone ·  Somber but hopeful

themes ·  Storytelling; contact between Native American and white cultures; tradition; water and drought

motifs ·  Non-linear narrative structure; combination of poetry and prose

symbols ·  The Gallup Ceremonial