How we cite our quotes: (Poem.Paragraph)
Quote #1
He could feel it inside his skull—the tension of little threads being pulled and how it was with tangled things, things tied together, and as he tried to pull them apart and rewind them into their places, they snagged and tangled even more. (IV.2)
Tayo suffers from what doctors today call post-traumatic stress disorder, but Silko makes a point of avoiding the use of a western medical label for Tayo's disease. Instead she uses a metaphor for the confusion going on in Tayo's brain: his thoughts are like a bundle of tangled threads that get even more tangled when he tries to pull them apart.
Quote #2
"He cries all the time. Sometimes he vomits when he cries."
"Why does he cry, Tayo?"
"He cries because they are dead and everything is dying."
(V.9-11)
In the hospital, Tayo speaks about himself in the third person. It's like he's trying to distance himself even further from the pain that he's feeling. Or maybe just trying out what it's like to narrate your own life.
Quote #3
It took a great deal of energy to be a human being, and the more the wind blew and the sun moved southwest, the less energy Tayo had. (V.78)
You know Tayo's feeling pretty bad when you read that, for him, just existing is hard work. This is some major depression.
Quote #4
Maybe there would always be those shadows over his shoulder and out of the corner of each eye; and in the nights the dreams and the voices. Maybe there was nothing anyone could do for him. (XII.1)
Here Tayo resigns himself to feeling stressed out for the rest of his life. Um, yeah…no thank you.
Quote #5
Those who did not die grew up by the river, watching their mothers leave at sundown. They learned to listen in the darkness, to the sounds of footsteps and loud laughing, to voices and sounds of wine; to know when the mother was returning with a man. They learned to stand at a distance and see if she would throw them food—so they would go away and not peek through the holes in the rusting tin, at the man spilling wine on himself as he unbuttoned his pants. (XII.11)
The homeless children of the prostitutes in Gallup lead seriously hard lives. Pretty much as soon as they can walk, they have to learn to fend for themselves. How does their suffering relate to Tayo's mental suffering?
Quote #6
They walked like survivors, with dull vacant eyes, their fists clutching the coins he'd thrown to them. [ . . . ] (XIII.2)
This description of the homeless Native Americans in Gallup walking like "survivors" makes us think of Tayo and the other POWs being forced to march to the prison camp, or of the shell-shocked survivors of the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The novel seems to be telling us that the suffering caused by poverty and homelessness has a lot in common with the suffering caused by war.
Quote #7
Even in the wintertime, when the rooms at the Hudson were cold and the window by the bed had frost on it, they sweated beer; and they lay on her so heavily that it was difficult to breathe. [ . . . ] She stared at the stains on the ceiling, and waited until they gave up or fell asleep, and then she rolled out from under them. (XXI.65)
Helen Jean is a minor character, but she illustrates how a young girl from the reservation has so few opportunities to make a living in Gallup that she has to resort to prostitution. Her story sounds really similar to Tayo's mom's, and it probably doesn't have a very happy ending.
Quote #8
A strange paralysis accompanied his thoughts; a sudden overwhelming fatigue took hold, and his heart pounded furiously, and he panted trying to walk only a few feet from the place he had tied the mare. His knees buckled, and he fell into the old pine needles and cones under a tree. This was the end. (XXIV.36)
Even after Betonie's ceremony, Tayo has several setbacks, where he loses confidence in his beliefs and becomes overwhelmed by despair.
Quote #9
In the moonlight he could see Harley's body hanging from the fence, where they had tangled it upright between strands of barbed wire. (XXVI.11)
Yikes! The threat of violence has been building up to this moment, and this is when it finally climaxes. Poor Harley.
Quote #10
He was certain his own sanity would be destroyed if he did not stop them and all the suffering and dying they caused—the people incinerated and exploded, and little children asleep on streets outside Gallup bars. He was not strong enough to stand by and watch any more. He would rather die himself. (XXVI.21)
Tayo sees that Harley's torture, atomic warfare, poverty, and homelessness are all related—they're all different forms of suffering caused by the destroyers.