Leslie Marmon Silko writes of a torn character, Tayo, in her book Ceremony. Her character, Tayo is stuck between the two cultures he is a part of. This becomes a main theme of the book and there is even a parallel between the structure of the book and this theme. .
Tayo is of mixed blood, a living dichotomy. He is half Native American half white, and because of this both Native Americans and whites alienate him. Emo shows disgust for Tayo when he says, "There he is. He thinks he's something all right. Because he's part white. Don't you, half-breed? (57)" The discrimination that Tayo as well as the rest of the Laguna people receive also becomes apparent when Tayo mentions to his friends, "Don't lie. You knew right away. The war was over, the uniform was gone. All of a sudden the man at the store waits on you last, makes you wait until all the white people bought what they wanted.(42)" The fact that he does not belong in either world further impacts his ability to come to terms with the deaths of Rocky and Josiah. .
Tayo is neither white nor Native American, he is only a little of both. That is why Ku"oosh's ceremony did little to ease Tayo's pain. The old Laguna ways have little effect on Tayo not only because he is half white, but because he is a man of the modern white world. Ku"oosh's isolation from the modern world becomes especially apparent during this passage, "In the old way of warfare, you couldn't kill another human being in battle without knowing it But the old man would not have believed white warfare - killing across great distances without knowing who or how many died, (36)" It is Ku"oosh's lack of understanding for the modern white world that causes this ceremony to fail. To overcome his illness Tayo must find a cure that takes into account both aspects of himself. Betonie is a character very similar to Tayo; he too is of mixed blood and can understand the ways of both the white world and Laguna tradition.
