Ceremony, written by Leslie Marmon Silko

FORM: Your essay should be MLA formatted: One-inch margins on all sides, 12 point Times New Roman font, the correct page number in the upper-right-hand corner of all pages. WORKS CITED PAGE: You MUST include an MLA formatted Works Cited page with entries for Ceremony and Reading Lessons. DO NOT USE ANY OTHER TEXTS FOR THIS ESSAY. TASK: In a 5-7-page essay, use psychoanalytic literary theory to produce a reading of Ceremony that responds to one of the prompts below. Include AT LEAST two quotations from Scott Carpenter’s chapter on psychoanalytic literary theory. For this essay, you must integrate Carpenter’s conception of the theory into your analysis of the text rather than defining it at the beginning of the essay. OPTION 1: Analyze a given character or characters in the text using psychoanalytic principles; i.e., character as patient. “This type of interpretation, often quite rewarding, may seek to demonstrate how certain childhood experiences mark a character over the long haul, expressing themselves in some form of symptomatic behavior. Alluring in its own right, character analysis works best with certain kinds of texts, especially long narratives that give the reader a sense of the character’s development over the long haul” (Carpenter 74-75). OPTION 2: What are the competing Symbolic Orders represented in the novel? How does Tayo’s inability to “fit”into the existing Symbolic Orders undermine the formation of his identity? Discuss the ways in which Tayo’s attempts to (re)integrate into society are subverted by prejudice against Native Americans in general and his mixed heritage in particular—as well as the internalization of that prejudice. OPTION 3: Use the text to elucidate certain aspects of psychoanalysis. This method could also be seen as analyzing the text as a whole using psychoanalytic principles; i.e., text as patient. For example, examine the text for: Symptoms—repeated, perhaps compulsive, behavior that can be linked to an earlier trauma. Symptomatic behavior can signify the presence of repression; “repressed thoughts recur endlessly, often changing disguises” (Carpenter 82). The uncanny—those “unsettling images that strike the reader as simultaneously strange and familiar. Images of ghosts, dismembered bodies, automata…” (Carpenter 81). The appearance of the uncanny can signify the presence of repression. Leaving the mirror stage and entering into the Symbolic Order—Progressing from an infantile to a more mature consciousness of self, expressing an ability to communicate using language and live according to rules,possessing a name. QUESTIONS TO HELP YOU GET STARTED: 1. Which characters represent the different Symbolic Orders present in the novel? 2. How might the poems/prayers that appear in/break up the narrative be read through psychoanalytic literary theory? That is, what might they signify when approached as a phenomenon (that is, taken all together, with a focus on their form rather than or in addition to their content)? 3. Which passages seem to lend themselves most easily to a psychoanalytic reading? That is, which seem to showcase the dichotomy between the conscious and unconscious mind, between manifest and latent meaning, between rational thought and action and irrational, unconsciously driven behavior? Which passages seem to represent the uncanny? Which passages represent character-expressed or textexpressed symptoms?