The Electric Kolaid Acid Test And Ceremony Figurative Language

For my IOP I will be comparing the novels The Electric Koolaid Acid Test by Tom Wolfe and Ceremony by Leslie Silko. In this comparison I will be analyzing how these author’s writing styles portray the character development between Silko’s main character Tayo, and the minor characters which Wolfe documented. In both pieces, the reader can see that the characters are presented with internal and external conflicts that shape their realities as well as affect the decisions they make. In order to convey this character progression, both Silko and Wolfe illustrate the ways that their characters gain their acceptance of their social standings in society through the use of figurative language, as well as their fragmented writing styles which include

Tayo, himself, is uneducated about his own Native American traditions, due to his time at attending a white man’s school, which can be seen on page 87 [change slide] “The science teacher… held the science textbook up for the class to see the true source of explanations. He had studied those books, and he had no reason to believe the stories anymore.” The way that Silko inserts the poems throughout the novel, is by strategically placing them either before or after Tayo is dealing with some sort of problem, and then relating the poem to his struggle. Since storytelling is a very common type of way to keep Native American tradition alive, she uses these more frequently towards the end. The reason she does this is to convey how Tayo, with the help of Betonie, is immersing himself more into his culture and has a growing appreciation for

This can be seen in Wolfe’s novel on page 411, [change slide] where the Pranksters continuously shout the phrase “We blew it!” It is important to note that Wolfe purposefully repeats this nine times to convey the importance of the Pranksters coming to terms with their failure at trying to confront societal conformity with the use of hallucinogens.The effectiveness of this repetition allows the reader to reflect on this journey that they have read about and see how, despite everything that they have been through, getting on and off the bus, they are all together again, back in the warehouse on Harriet Street where they first started this movement. This creates a feeling of nostalgia, because it is the original members, specifically the members who had less mentions throughout the book, such as Cool Breeze who only made two appearances throughout the novel, who have accepted that they will never amount to anything more than what they