Response to Ceremony pgs. 1-58

Describe, as best as you can, Auntie’s attitudes about Tayo, mixed blood, and religion.

Tayo's aunt is not fond of him, for many reasons. Mainly it is because Auntie's sister, Tayo's mother, had a reputation of getting drunk and sleeping around with white men. Everyone in the reservation knew about this, so therefore, Auntie's family was looked down upon for "Little Sister's" mistakes. To put it bluntly, Little Sister was a whore and this definitely had an affect on how people not only viewed Little Sister, but also Little Sister's parents, uncles and aunts. The people of the reservation would probably assume that Little Sister's parents did not raise her right and that they were not good Christian people. Auntie takes pride in being a "Christian woman", but having a little sister who clearly does not live a Christian lifestyle and obeys the rules of God (i.e. abstaining until marriage) made people question how Godly Auntie was as well. So, to try and compensate for the respect that the family has lost, Auntie decides raise Tayo, even though he is the product of an un-Godly relationship. By doing this, Auntie gains back the respect that her family has lost. The people of the reservation consider Tayo to be an "unfortunate burden" and caring for him was at great personal risk for Auntie and her family's reputation. Although the people continued to gossip about the family, they gained a lot of respect for Auntie because instead of turning her back against her sister and her sister's child, she brought him into her home and cared for him. This would have been the Christian thing to do, so the people admire her for doing this.

The fact that Tayo also is half-Indian, half white also plays a part in Auntie's attitude toward's him. Interracial relationships were not encouraged because the people of the reservation feared that the white people would taint their culture and beliefs. Native Americans take pride in their culture and they did not want it to be destroyed. Also, it would have been an insult to have a relationship with white people, as in the past, the white people had taken the Native Americans land and freedom away, in the process raping their land and killing their people.

Finally, Auntie's attitude towards Tayo is also affected by the fact that her son was killed in the war and now Auntie is left with no son and a mixed nephew. Tayo oftentimes feels like he should have been the one that died instead of Rocky, especially since Tayo already feels like he is worthless after the war anyway. Auntie still cares for him anyway, bringing him food and watching over him, but Tayo knows that she is ashamed of him and bitter that he returned home, not her son.

Explain, from what you see so far, how the novel represents race and racial politics.

Ceremony presents race as a primary factor of people's opinions of each other and how they view themselves compared to other races. As mentioned before in the previous question, a person of mixed blood is considered inferior in comparison to a full-blood Native American. Even though Tayo was born and raised on the reservation, the fact that he is half white offends others. Whether the people are still bitter about how the white people stole their land or they are fearful that because Tayo is half-white he may assume that he is better than all of them, mixed blood is dirty blood. Tayo's friend, Emo, constantly criticizes Tayo for being part Indian, part white, calling him a "half-breed" and frequently taunting him and cracking jokes about his race.
It is clear that the full-blooded Native Americans are considered better than the half-blooded Native Americans.

Native Americans are also viewed as being above the Japanese that Emo, Harley and Tayo fought against in World War II. Emo refers to the Japanese as "Japs" and takes pride in his collection of teeth he has from the war which we obtained by knocking the teeth of Japanese soldiers out during battle. Emo proclaims that the U.S. Army was the best and that they "butcher every Jap they we found." He also had no problem admitting to his friends that he thinks that the U.S. should have "blew them all to hell. We should have dropped bombs on all the rest and blown them off the face of the earth." These statements made by Emo create disturbing images, but they provide the reader with a hierarchy of race within the Native American culture.