Native American Literature and the Question of Universality Focusing on Silko's Ceremony

미국 원주민 문학과 보편성 문제-실코의 『의식』을 중심으로

This paper delves into the question of universality in Native American Literature focusing on Leslie Marmon Silko's Ceremony, exploring some different definitions of universality and looking at the work in the light of these definitions. In this paper I proposed four possible definitions or faces of universality applicable to the narrative of the oppressed people. Firstly, the colonizers indoctrinate their colonized persons with the colonialists' beliefs through the process of assimilation purposefully imposed in the name of universality. In Ceremony Rocky and Emo are the victims of assimilation including militarization. Secondly, the colonized people hold on to their traditional values in face of colonizers' universalism. In Ceremony Tayo shows an attachment to tribal stories in opposition to whites' lies. Thirdly, the colonized can get together by sharing experiences of violence, occupation, and loss of their land and language, forming a bond of "commonality" among them. In Ceremony the story of a medicine man, Betonie, suggests oneness of victims against the evil power of destroyers represented by nuclear bombs. Fourthly and lastly, the universal consists in the subject's trial and practice attempting to achieve universalism against the existing order, not in the stipulation defining what is universal. In the story Tayo endeavors to retrieve his cattle by transgressing whites' property and makes a hole in the established dichotomy of whites and Indians. In sum, Ceremony as a minor literature shows the developmental aspects of universality, culminating in Tayo's refusal to assimilate himself to whites' lies.