Ceremony

Ceremony The protagonist of the story, Tayo, is struggling to keep balance in his life. He has difficulty maintaining a consciousness of what is dream and what is memory. He is torn by feelings of divided loyalty due to his mixed parentage and the loss of his "brother" and friends. In order to portray this sense of confusion between dream, myth, memory, and reality, the author combines prose and poetry throughout the book. Ceremony is …

…as a mixed-race individual, suffers an identity conflict. He must battle internally to choose the right way to live. This is a cause of great difficulty because he receives no sympathy from either group. Tayo cannot decide if the medicine men have anything to heal him fully. Tayo's patience and persistence prevail. Although he did not have much support, he followed the traditional Native practices faithfully and was rewarded by the return of the rain.