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.