Ceremony up to pg 26

In the book Ceremony the main character Tayo comes home from war and is faced with the challenge of going back into society with PTS. On the way back to his aunts house he gets on a train and is coping with the pain of loosing his friend Rocky. "Tayo felt weak, and the longer he walked the more his legs felt as though they might become invisible again again; then the top part os his body would topple and when his head was level with the ground he would be lost in the smoke again, in the fog"(Silko 15). Tayo goes from being in combat to being in everyday life getting on a train and and the PTS is taking over. He is at the train station but starts having body detachment. His body begins to feel like its starting to disappear and he feels like he is getting lost in the smoke. The white smoke is something that Tayo continuously talks about when he experiences PTS. The white smoke is when he imagines himself drifting away when he is put on the drugs he was given when he was in the war. And now is a self defense he uses when the PTS comes back. "It was all worse than he had ever dreamed; to have drifted all those months in white smoke, only to wake up again in the prison camp. But he did not want to be invisible when he died, so he pulled himself loose, one last time"(Silko 15). The white smoke is a place he goes in his mind when he numbs the pain from the PTS.

Stress consuming your mind

White Smoke

Tayo also is trying to deal with survivors guilt throughout this story. Survivors guilt is when someone feels bad for being alive when so many other people had died. He wasn't ready to leave the war after The Death March he wasn't ready to go back into society. "If they had not dresses him and led him to the car, he would still be there, drifting along the north wall, invisible in the grey twilight"(Silko 14). He didn't want to leave he wasn't ready to go back especially without Rocky and he felt guilty that he was going home leaving so many people dead behind. After he leaves a doctor is checking him out and asks him if he is visible. "The new doctor had asked him if he had ever been visible and was allowed to speak to an invisible one"(Silko 14). This shows the racism during this time period. To the white people he was invisible. Tayo began to feel invisible because no one cared and he just wanted to disappear.

Racism

Invisible