Ceremony: pg 1-58

Explain why Tayo blames himself for the six year drought.

From the very beginning of Ceremony, our main character Tayo is haunted with images from the war's past, and how he is missing a couple of really important people in his life who are now dead. These two men are Josiah and Rocky, and all of the memories of Rocky come from when they were in the war together. One of these memories is Tayo helping carrying Rocky on a stretcher, and it had been raining, and the ground was slippery and muddy. Because of this he dropped the stretcher and was having a hard time finding it to carry Rocky. Then he "damned the rain unitil the words were a chant, and he sang it while it crawled through the mud" (11). I think this passage is very interesting because it gives us a very visual image of what Tayo is going through. He goes on to say that "he prayed the rain away, and for the sixth year it was dry". For this is the reason that Tayo blames himself for the drought thats occuring because of how passionately he wanted it to go away during the war.

Describe, as best as you can, Auntie’s attitudes about Tayo, mixed blood, and religion.

When reading Ceremony it is pretty obvious to see how his Auntie feels about Tayo and the way he was born. There is a passage when Grandma and Auntie are discussing whether or not to get a medicine man and Auntie is concerned because the town will start gossipping and saying "Dont do it. He's not full blood anyways". Her feelings about this are obvious because she had hidden Josiah and a white woman when she was having his baby. It honestly seems like she is disgraced by Tayo, not because of his illness, but because of how he is of mixed blood. She doesn't care about getting him the proper help, and jus feels obligated to take him in because he has nobody else.