How we cite our quotes: (Poem.Paragraph)
Quote #1
The skin. He saw the skin of the corpses again and again, in ditches on either side of the long muddy road—skin that was stretched shiny and dark over bloated hands; even white men were darker after death. There was no difference when they were swollen and covered with flies. (IV.4)
Tayo's observation illustrates one of Ceremony's assertions about race—that the differences between people don't have anything to do with the color of their skin.
Quote #2
"Those people," he said, pointing in the direction the women and children had gone, "I thought they locked them up.
"Oh, that was some years back. Right after Pearl Harbor. But now they've turned them all loose again. Sent them home." (V.29)
Tayo's experience with the Japanese Americans reveals that Native Americans aren't the only group to experience discrimination by white Americans. Tayo is referring to the Japanese internment camps where more than 100,000 Japanese Americans were detained following the bombing of Pearl Harbor. Definitely a darker moment in US history.
Quote #3
He could still see the face of the little boy, looking back at him, smiling, and he tried to vomit that image from his head because it was Rocky's smiling face from a long time before, when they were little kids together. (V.33)
This is a repetition of the experience Tayo has of seeing Josiah's face on a Japanese soldier. Some critics have argued that Tayo feels a connection to the Japanese because there is a physical resemblance between Native Americans and Japanese people—but we think we're all connected in some way or another.
Quote #4
The flood water was the color of the earth, of their skin, of the blood, his blood dried brown in the bandages. (V.84)
This observation—that Tayo's skin and dried blood are the same color as the earth and the flood water—creates another connection between Native Americans and the natural world.
Quote #5
The first day in Oakland he and Rocky walked down the street together and a big Chrysler stopped in the street and an old white woman rolled down the window and said, "God bless you, God bless you," but it was the uniform, not them, she blessed. (VI.16)
Tayo's experiences with white people change dramatically when he becomes a soldier in the U.S. Army. But unlike his friends, Tayo isn't fooled by this new treatment he receives from white people.
Quote #6
"See these dumb Indians thought these good times would last. They didn't ever want to give up the cold beer and the blond c***. Hell no! They were America the Beautiful too, this was the land of the free just like the teachers said in school." (VI.21)
Tayo's bitterness and irony tells us that "America the Beautiful" isn't always so pretty. Remember, all the glitters isn't always gold.
Quote #7
"I'm half-breed. I'll be the first to say it. I'll speak for both sides." (VI.22)
Because he's half Laguna Pueblo and half white, Tayo really does speak for both sides in this novel. Check out our analysis of his character for more on this.
Quote #8
"The war was over, the uniform was gone. All of a sudden that man at the store waits on you last, makes you wait until all the white people bought what they wanted. And the white lady at the bus depot, she's real careful now not to touch your hand when she counts out your change." (VI.22)
Tayo bitterly tries to get his friends to face up to reality—the acceptance they felt from white society during the war years didn't really mean that racism had ended. Racism is still going strong when the war ends.
Quote #9
"Nothing is that simple," he said, "you don't write off all the white people, just like you don't trust all the Indians." (XIII.71)
While this novel makes plenty of accusations against whites and white culture, it also points out that the terrible things white people have done are not the essence of their race. Even though white people have historically treated Native Americans very poorly, that doesn't mean all white people are bad.
Quote #10
"The Japanese," the medicine man went on, [ . . . ] "It isn't surprising you saw him with them. You saw who they were. Thirty thousand years ago they were not strangers. You saw what the evil had done: you saw the witchery ranging as wide as this world." (XIII.47)
Some critics make the argument that the connection between Native Americans and Japanese in this novel is based on a physical resemblance that they share. Whether that's true or not, Betonie's observation that "thirty thousand years ago [the Japanese] were not strangers" suggests a shared heritage between the two groups.
Quote #11
She reached into her purse for the little pink compact and looked in the mirror. Her hair was cut short and was tightly curled. It needed to be washed, but at least it wasn't long or straight. (XX.67)
Both Helen Jean and Tayo's mother, Laura, cut their hair in an attempt to fit in in white society. Since Native American women traditionally wore their hair long and straight, a short hairstyle is a symbol of women's rejection of their traditional culture.
Quote #12
He knew then he had learned "The Lie" by heart—"The Lie" which they had wanted him to learn: only brown-skinned people were thieves; white people didn't steal, because they always had the money to buy whatever they wanted. (XXIV.24)
This "lie" embodies everything Tayo (and the novel) seeks to contradict. With regard to race, you could say that the novel's message is exactly the opposite of "The Lie"—white people are the thieves who have stolen the land, yet they've convinced everyone that only brown-skinned people are criminals.
Quote #13
From that time on, human beings were one clan again, united by the fate the destroyers planned for all of them, for all living things; united by a circle of death that devoured people in cities twelve thousand miles away, victims who had never known these mesas, who had never seen the delicate colors of the rocks which boiled up their slaughter. (XXV.221)
Ceremony argues that the extreme dangers posed by atomic warfare make all the differences between clans and racial groups seem petty. We're all "united by a circle of death." In other words, we all need to stop squabbling and come together in order to defend ourselves.