Comparison on Ceremony by Leslie Silko and Grizzly Years by Doug Peacock - Literature review Example

?559544 Compare/Contrast essay on Ceremony by Leslie Silko and Grizzly Years by Doug Peacock The two novels, Ceremony, by Leslie Marmon Silko and Grizzly Years, by Doug Peacock, tell the stories of men who go to war and came home spiritually damaged. The books tell the story of their recovery and coming to terms with their horrifying war experiences. Both detail how the men find peace and restoration in the wilderness, although the two books differ in the authors’ images of restoration and wilderness. The books also differ in many other ways too: the books are set after different twentieth-century wars; one of the themes in Ceremony is Native American culture; in Grizzly Years the emphasis is on the culture of grizzly bears; and, Silko writes a fictional account while Peacock may (or may not) embellish the details some, his account is based on actual events. The most striking aspect of both novels though lies in the fact that like many protagonists in great American fiction, the characters reach transcendence. Ceremony details the experience a young Native American man, Tayo, has after serving in the marines in the Philippines in World War II. Tayo signs up because his cousin, Rocky, does He does not want to kill anybody, and he consciously avoids it during his tour of duty, so his guilt is not the same as Peacock’s. Instead, Tayo is plagued by guilt over the death of Rocky, in the Philippines as a result of war. “He did not know how to tell [Ku’oosh] that he had not killed any enemy or that he did not think that he had. But he had done things far worse, and the effects were everywhere, in the cloudless sky, in the dry brown hills, shrinking skin and hide taut over sharp bone” (Silko 33). Tayo and Rocky had been raised more like brothers than cousins, but because Tayo is half white, Auntie, Rocky’s mother, favors Rocky and shows distain for Tayo, her substance abusing sister’s child. Tayo knows of Auntie’s preference and believes his life is less valuable than Rocky’s. Because he did not protect Rocky better or die in his place, Tayo feels survivor’s guilt. Tayo also feels guilty because he did not stay home from the war to help his uncle, Josiah, with his cattle business. When Josiah died, the cattle were rustled and Tayo feels responsible for that. Tayo must overcome his mother’s sins, his mixed race, his two-faced friends, and the damage to his soul from serving in World War II. One of the antagonists in Peacock’s story is war, just as it is in Silko’s. At the beginning of Ceremony, Tayo has flashbacks to his war experience much like Peacock does in Grizzly Years. Grizzly Years tells of Peacock’s years of studying grizzly bears in Yellowstone National Park and other areas where grizzlies live. At times, the narrative veers off to some other location like the desert in the southwestern United States, near where Tayo’s story is set, and Viet Nam when Peacock has flashbacks from his time serving there. Peacock flashes back quite frequently at the beginning of the book, but at about the halfway point the flashbacks taper off and become more recollections than actual stories of events that occurred while Peacock was in Viet Nam. As the story progresses his stories become that of repeated encounters with grizzly bears, sleeping out in the rugged terrain, tracking grizzlies and photo shooting them, bad weather, hunger, and always the danger of being mauled by one of the great animals he loves so much. Like Tayo, he overcomes his battle fatigue and malarial symptoms in part because of his quests into the wilderness to dwell among the grizzlies. Peacock is distrustful of the government, who kills bears when they maul humans; sometimes the bears are provoked; sometimes they are not. Peacock frequently sabotages conservationists’ and others’ attempts to protect humans who invade the grizzly territory in his efforts to help the grizzlies live without human interference. Peacock also feels guilt after serving in Viet Nam. In Viet Nam, he sets out to revenge the death of a friend and kills the wrong man. He says, “It was the beginning of my end over there, and I came apart quickly. The rationalization returned to horrify me. I quit killing strangers forever. It never had been my war anyway” (Peacock 86). Instead of returning to the United States after Viet Nam and protesting the war as many others did, Peacock seeks solitude and isolation among the grizzly bears. When he begins his quest of the bear, though, he admits that he is a heavy drinker and he also takes amphetamines, but, while he does not make his triumph over substance abuse a major part of the novel, he does attribute his success over substance abuse to the consolation he finds in his years of living among and studying the grizzlies. Like Tayo, Peacock suffers physically from war sickness, only he classifies his physical illness as some sort of unidentified strain of malaria. For the first half of Ceremony, Tayo suffers from war fatigue—physical and mental illness that he cannot seem to control until he undergoes a native ceremony with a medicine man. He also drinks too much with his worthless friends, who, in the end betray him. The medicine man, Betonie sends Tayo in search of a pattern in the constellation (perhaps Ursa Major), which Tayo finds along with a woman who has magical powers. She helps Tayo to heal, and, of course, he falls in love with her, although she seems to be married or living with another man. With her help, Tayo recovers his uncle’s cattle and begins to feel less guilty about the events that he could not control. Part of this has to do with the story that Betonie tells him about witchery that plagues all humans, so it is not fair, Betonie says, to just blame the white man or the Native American or any group of people. Tayo felt affinity with the Japanese while he is in the Philippines. In fact, he imagines they are members o his family. Betonie’s words help him to see that all humans are the same spiritually. Interestingly at this point in Ceremony, bears become important to the narrative just like they are throughout Grizzly Years. Betonie’s helper, Shush, which means “bear,” performs the healing ceremony that starts Tayo on his road to health. During the ceremony, Shush “worked with the black sand, making bear prints side by side. Along the right side of the bear footprints, the old man painted paw prints in blue, and then yellow, and finally white. . . .The helper stepped out from the shadows; he was grunting like a bear” (Silko 131-132). Tayo goes on a spirit quest using a bear as his guide. Peacock acknowledges the connection between bears and Native Americans who believe in the bears’ magical powers and identification with humans. He says, “The Blackfeet used these mountains for vision quests; their medicine people sought their patron animal., Real Bear, as a spirit guide, because the grizzly was more than the animal wearing the fur coat, he was the Medicine Grizzly” (Peacock 130). For Peacock, the grizzly bear is also his guide on his spirit quest to overcome the damage done to his soul by war. He seems to have some affinity with the bear because although he admits he should have been killed several times, the grizzlies always leave him unharmed. In one of his frequent recountings of near maulings by grizzlies, Peacock talks about a Native American ceremony that was used to protect against just such a disaster. “Among the Kootenai, a dream of bears was a sign to hold a ceremony asking for immunity from bear attacks. Protection was granted by the bear himself. On the bluff of pitchstone and rhyolite, still numbed by sleep and troubled by my dream, I noted that I had neglected to hold such a rite” (Peacock 266). Yet Peacock is never mauled although he claims to come very close to it many times. He also mentions the Native American bear ceremonies which he says are often called “the Cult of the Master Bear. . . .The symbolic bear, both black and brown, becomes the model of renewal and immortality, in undergoing burial and resurrection” (Peacock 149). Just like Tayo, Peacock experiences rebirth and purpose after encountering bears even though his encounters are actual, and Tayo’s are figurative. Regardless of the type of encounter the two men had with bears, both men heal and regain some peace and perspective in their lives after their encounters. In American literary terms, they reach transcendence, or a rising above their problems and seeing a greater Truth or Understanding about the universe and its inhabitants. Both men, damaged by war, return to their homes—Tayo to the reservation in New Mexico, Peacock to the forests of the Northern United States—and encounter bears, which helps them to heal and transcend the evils they have encountered and now know exist in the world. Both men find love, and while Peacock’s story entails more years of his life, both presumably go on to live happy and fulfilled lives. Works Cited Peacock, Doug. Grizzly Years. New Yokr: Henry Holt and Company, 1990. Silko, Leslie Marmon. Ceremony. New York: Penguin, 1977, 2006. Read More