Lessons Learned

It seems that the primary lesson we as students have learned in Experiment Part II of this course is that it is very difficult to effectively express the experience of others. It is for this reason that secondary modes of expression must be invented and practice to display the affect of this secondarily subjective  experience. The modes we have discovered and the purposes they serve are as follows:

1.) Morrison’s Jazz- music- through the characterization of individual persons as “instruments”, the tone of their stories and the narrative as a whole may be better experienced by the reader. (Example: Violet’s narrative tones contrast greatly from each other, ranging from slow and steady to erratic, lending her the characterization of a mournful or upbeat piano.)

2.) Silko’s Ceremony- myth- the intertwining of myth and its aesthetics allow for a historical, spiritual, and cultural background with which secondary experience can be expressed and better felt by readers. (Example: The Laguna “Coyote” myth parallels perfectly with Tayo’s return from the war and the hunger he feels for belonging upon this return.)

It seems to me that Morrison’s implementation of musical tools in regards to narrative is the most useful manner in which secondary experience can be intuited by readers. This can be through a variety methods, whether it be attributing specific lyrics simultaneously with narrative, or including a musical background with which a narrative should be read. In both cases, the reader is recieving cues that allow them to experience what is occuring to the character in case, granting specific tones to their experience and lending insights as well.

Myth as a Means of Expression

“There was no telling what Coyote had done to him…Then they found the place where Coyote got him…He was suffering from thirst and hunger, he was almost too weak to raise his head…This is him all right, but what can we do to save him?” (Silko, 140) This quote, expressed by Silko in her novel Ceremony, parallels perfectly with Tayo the protagonist’s struggles after returning to his native reservation after fighting in World War II. Upon analysis, one realizes that the Laguna myth of the Coyote does not serve as a metaphor for Tayo’s plight, but allows the reader to intuit specific ideals about this plight and experience them as a result of their affect. When the character of Coyote is contributed to war, and the man to Tayo, this affect can be better sensed. In the myth, Coyote caused the man to run asunder in his path, disrupting his life, and causing him “thirst and hunger.” This sense of “thirst and hunger” was experienced by Tayo after returning from the war. His participation in WWII caused him mental disarray, making him vastly different from his civilian and even veteran counterparts, causing him to long for a sense of belonging and companionship in his home, a place in which he feels dissimilar and separate. He thirsted for it. He hungered for it. It may also be safe to intuit that Tayo feels this sense of absence or misrecognition within himself, “speaking a different language”—as did Coyote’s victim—than what he had previously spoken, before the war. Using a character description from Blanchot, Tayo “is outside salvation, he belongs to exile, that region where not only is he away from home, but away from himself.”

Upon being found, the Coyote victim’s family searched for a holy means by which to cure him, just as was done in Tayo’s case. “They ran to the holy places, they asked what might be done.” (Silko, 140) The use of intertwining myth and Tayo’s narrative displays the Laguna philosophy of healing, whether it be medicinal, spiritual, or both, and allows a link between historical Laguna methods of rehabilitation with their modern, identical practices. Tayo’s Laguna culture views holy healers as a means to embodied salvation, and Tayo’s situation is better understood when keeping this historical, spiritual, and cultural frame in mind, as is expressed through the Coyote myth.

As we have deduced at this point in our course, the expression of a secondary source’s experience is a difficult task, primarily as a result of the lack of subjective emotion in regards to their experience. Silko, however, found a useful tool in myth as a means through which secondary sentiment can be expressed and felt by others because it provides a spiritual and historical background in which the experiences have occurred, and the mind frame with which they are felt. Because myth has no specific link to any one source, it may be used as a universal narrative with which unlimited life experiences may be paralleled, and its aesthetics used to intuit concrete sentimental and emotional affect.

The Art of Intuition

I’ve learned recently that intuition certainly has an inherent connection to affect. As readers, we are striving to understand what a character is feeling, not in the clichéd “oh, wow, I’ve gone through that” manner, but through completely objective eyes, considering each experience unique. Silko allowed us, as readers, to intuit Tayo’s experience throughout then novel by transforming him from an apathetic individual to one possessing a great capacity to be affected and expressing his experiences effectively.

Beautiful expressions of such feeling can be seen throughout the conclusion of the novel, most notably upon his interaction with Tseh. “She was with him again, a heart unbroken where time subsided into dawn, and the sunset gave way to the stars, wheeling across the night. The breaking and crushing were gone, and the love pushed inside his chest, and when he cried now, it was because she loved him so much.” (Silko 227) These depictions allow us to intuit to the fullest extent Tayo’s sense of love and devotion to Tseh, and this innate connection this love has to nature.