Comparing Ceremony By Leslie Marmon Silko And Flight By Sherman Alexie

The novels Ceremony by Leslie Marmon Silko and Flight by Sherman Alexie follow the lives of two mixed race Native Americans whose white backgrounds have a unique impact on how they identify themselves. Tayo, from Ceremony, had an Indian mother and white father, something that his Auntie, who he is forced to live with when his mother dies, and Emo, a fellow WWII veteran who is full-blood Laguna, poke fun at him and criticize him for. This criticism pushes Tayo away from both his white identity, because it is such a point of contention for people in his life, as well as his Laguna identity, because members of his family and community aren’t accepting of him. Zits, from Flight, is similar to Tayo in that he is both Native American and white and struggles to feel at home with either identity. Zits never experiences a sense of permanence because he is moved around from foster home to foster home because of his erratic behavior. Zits has a disdain for white people because of his experience with the

He faces scrutiny from people in all realms of his like, including his family. His Auntie, who took him in when his mother died, has such contempt for his mother because of her actions with white men and continues to ridicule and talk down to Tayo about his mixed-race as though he should feel like a burden. His fellow Laguna veterans as well have issues with his race. One veteran who fought in the same war as Tayo, Emo, said, “You drink like an Indian, and you’re crazy like one too – but you aren’t shit, white trash. You love Japs the way your mother loved to screw white men,” (Silko 58). This constant pushback from people within the community he’s supposed to be calling home doesn’t make him feel connected to his Laguna heritage and pushes him away from that side of his