English 140 Final

Old Ku'oosh

The Laguna medicine man. A very traditional medicine man, Ku'oosh does not have the wherewithal to invent the new ceremonies needed to treat the new diseases. He does, however, possess the wisdom to send Tayo to see someone else and to embrace Tayo when he returns with the completed new ceremony.

Ruthie

The opening words of Housekeeping—"My name is Ruth"—is almost the only time the novel's narrator isn't called Ruthie. A solitary and sensitive child, Ruthie becomes a tall, gangly young woman who admits that she has "never distinguished readily between thinking and dreaming."

Adele T

A local psychic, called in by the police to help find the missing Treadwell siblings.

Helen Jean

A woman Harley and Leroy pick up in a bar. Helen Jean represents all of the young Native American women who went to the white towns looking for a good job and end up being dragged into prostitution and alcoholism.

Emo

A childhood acquaintance of Tayo's. Emo has always been critical of Tayo for his mixed race and been full of an undirected rage which only increases as a result of his fighting in World War II. Like the other war veterans, he is unable to find a place for himself on his return, and spends his time drinking and reliving idealized memories of his army days. When Tayo criticizes Emo's idealization of his army days, Emo's rage becomes directed at Tayo.

Leroy

A childhood friend of Tayo's. Harley's drinking buddy who fought in the war with him, Leroy is Harley's sidekick.

"How did you know I'd be here?" He said, still watching the cattle. She laughed and shook her head, "the way you talk!" she said. "I was here almost a week before you came. How did you know I'd be here? Tell me that first."

After being helped by a woman on his search for Josiah's cattle, Tayo dreams of her almost constantly. Then, the following summer, Tayo goes out to the ranch to care for the cattle and the new calves. When he arrives at the ranch, he finds the woman camped nearby. From her first appearance in the novel, she has offered Tayo almost magical assistance. Here, she confirms her role as one of his teachers, reminding him of the complexity of the world. Her words underline the cyclical nature of all things. Discovering who came in search of whom is like determining whether the chicken or the egg came first. She also points to the existence of designs greater than the plans or intentions of any one person. Tayo has been dreaming of meeting her for months, since she will play an integral role in the completion of the ceremony that the medicine man Betonie has already outlined. However, without any planning or communication, their meeting cannot have been consciously or mortally organized by either of them.

Descheeny

Betonie's grandfather. Along with the Mexican woman, Descheeny, a medicine man, began the creation of the new ceremony that would be able to cure the world of the destruction of the whites. He was the first of his people to recognize the need for collaboration between Native Americans and Mexicans.

Mexican girl

Betonie's grandmother. As a Mexican woman, like Night Swan, she represents the miscegenation of white and native American cultures. Wise even as a young girl, she begins the new ceremony along with Descheeny. She raises Betonie and ensures that he gains the tools he will need to continue the ceremony.

Pinkie

A childhood friend of Tayo's. Emo's drinking buddy and sidekick. Pinkie is eventually betrayed and killed by Emo.

The system was invisible, which makes it all the more impressive, all the more disquieting to deal with. But we were in accord, at least for now. The networks, the circuits, the streams, the harmonies.

At the close of Chapter 10, Jack goes to an ATM and finds that the bank computer corroborates his personal accounting. For Jack, this represents a significant victory, arrived at by hard work and good fortune. The vast, complicated network of technology that underlies everything from the supermarket scanners to the ATM machines has, to some degree, validated Jack and his sense of personal identity. The data have told him that he is indeed who he thinks he is. The value Jack places on such a seemingly small thing reflects both the importance of numbers and technology in defining identity, as well as Jack's deep-seated insecurity about what that identity is. He seeks confirmation wherever he can, and if the ATM can confer a temporary sense of security, then he is all the happier and stronger for it. However, the quote also hints that this accord won't always be the case, and that at some point in the future, the networks and the technology they represent will turn against Jack.

Alfonse Stompanato

Chairman of the American environments department at the College-on-the-Hill. Stompanato is a tough, imposing personality who, like Murray, is part of the college's group of smart, caustic, New York professors.

Circe

Circe - A maid and midwife who worked for the wealthy Butler family. Circe delivered Macon Jr. and Pilate. In her encounter with Milkman, Circe plays the same role as her namesake in Homer's Odyssey, the ancient Greek account of a lost mariner's ten-year voyage home. Just as Homer's Circe helps Odysseus find his way back to Ithaca, Morrison's Circe provides crucial information that reconnects Milkman with his family history. In this way, Morrison's Circe connects Milkman's past and future.

The Necessity of Tradition

In Ceremony, preserving tradition is essential to saving the Native American community. Both for Tayo and in the ancient stories, forgetting tradition brings massive drought and disaster. A key role of the medicine men is to preserve tradition, as is symbolized by the crates of artifacts they store. However, in order for tradition to survive, it must change with the times. The reservation medicine man, Ku'oosh, is unable to cure Tayo because he knows only the traditional healing ceremonies, which are not applicable to contemporary illnesses. As Betonie explains, traditions must be constantly reinvented to reflect the ever-changing reality of the world. Similarly, the novel shows the dangers of blindly adhering to traditions rather than trying to follow their intent. Auntie represents those who simply follow the dictates of traditions, as she mistrusts any form of interracial relationship. Josiah, on the other hand, represents those who follow the spirit of traditions, such as when he finds a way to interbreed Mexican and Hereford cattle to create a herd that will be both hardy and productive.

Another postmodern sunset, rich in romantic imagery. Why try to describe it? It's enough to say that everything in our field of vision seemed to exist in order to gather the light of this event.

In Chapter 30, Jack chases Winnie Richards to the top of a hill where they both pause to stare at one of the magnificent sunsets looming on the horizon. In the wake of the airborne toxic event, all the sunsets have become beautiful and spectacular. They are yet another part of a postmodern world that, in its never-ending repetition, makes the pleasure of any individual experience impossible to convey. The sunset is spectacular and beautiful, but those qualities are diminished if all sunsets are spectacular and beautiful. The experience still matters, but the words that are left to describe it have been flattened out and emptied of any meaning by repetition. An almost passive resignation inflects Jack's rhetorical question, "Why try to describe it?" In the modern world, words can't capture the sublime beauty, though romantic images can be invoked.

Names

In Song of Solomon, names show the effects of both oppression and liberation. Before Milkman uncovers his grandfather's true name, he is known as Macon Dead, the same name that white oppressors gave his grandfather. When Milkman finds out his grandfather's true name he begins to feel proud of himself and his family. The fact that Milkman's nickname describes him better than his recorded name shows that written names are often unreliable. For this reason, they are often replaced by names from the oral tradition. For instance, Dr. Foster's street is officially labeled Mains Avenue. But after his death, it is commonly known as "Not Doctor Street." Although the official name is accurate, the popular name is more descriptive. In the novel, names describe characters' personalities and behavior. Circe, for instance, shares her name with an enchantress in Homer's Odyssey who provides Odysseus with crucial help for his voyage homeward. Likewise, Morrison's Circe directs Milkman toward his ancestral home and allows him to bridge a gap in his family history. Another example is Guitar's last name, Bains, which is a homonym for "banes," or sources of distress. His name suggests both the oppression he has suffered and his profession as an assassin. Finally, Pilate's name is a homonym for "pilot." She guides Milkman along his journey to spiritual redemption.

Singing

In Song of Solomon, singing is a means of maintaining a link to a forgotten family history. In a community where most of the past generations were illiterate, songs rather than history books tell the story of the past. Songs record details about Milkman's heritage and cause Milkman to research his family history. Pilate's songs about Sugarman, for instance, encourage Milkman's quest to Virginia. Similarly, the songs Milkman hears about Solomon and Ryna inform him of the mysterious fate of his ancestors, and keep him on the path to self-discovery. Milkman is not the only character who is guided by song. Other members of the Dead family use songs and singing to heal themselves spiritually and emotionally. When Macon Jr. is depressed, for example, he secretly listens to Pilate's songs under her windows. Similarly, after Hagar dies, both Pilate and Reba cope with their grief by singing a mighty rendition of a gospel tune. The healing power of song is a common theme in African-American culture, where it brings people together and allows people to share experiences.

Who wrote Housekeeping?

Marilynne Robinson

Abandoned Women

Men's repeated abandonment of women in Song of Solomon shows that the novel's female characters suffer a double burden. Not only are women oppressed by racism, but they must also pay the price for men's freedom. Guitar tells Milkman that black men are the unacknowledged workhorses of humanity, but the novel's events imply that black women more correctly fit this description. The scenes that describe women's abandonment show that in the novel, men bear responsibility only for themselves, but women are responsible for themselves, their families, and their communities. For instance, after suffering through slavery, Solomon flew home to Africa without warning anyone of his departure. But his wife, Ryna, who was also a slave, was forced to remain in Virginia to raise her twenty-one children alone. Also, after Guitar's father is killed in a factory accident, Guitar's grandmother has to raise him and his siblings. Although she is elderly and ill, she supports her children financially, intellectually, and emotionally. Relying on this skewed idea of gender roles, the society in the novel judges men and women differently. While men who fly away from their communities and families are venerated as heroes, women who do the same are judged to be irresponsible. Although Solomon abandoned his family with his flight to Africa, generations later he is remembered as the brave patriarch of the whole community. At the same time, Ryna, who was left to care for a brood of children, is remembered as a woman who went mad because she was too weak to uphold her end of the bargain. Residents of Shalimar have named a scary, dark gulch after Ryna, while they have given Solomon's name to a scenic mountain peak. The community rewards Solomon's abandonment of his children but punishes Ryna's inability to take care of them alone.

Michael Mary Graham

Michael-Mary Graham - The Michigan poet laureate. Graham is a liberal who writes sentimental poetry and hires First Corinthians as a maid. Graham represents the double standard of white liberals. Although they claimed to support universal human rights, liberal whites often refused to treat African-Americans as equals.

Milkan Dead

Milkman Dead - The protagonist of the novel, also known as Macon Dead III. Born into a sheltered, privileged life, Milkman grows up to be an egotistical young man. He lacks compassion, wallows in self-pity, and alienates himself from the African-American community. As his nickname suggests, Milkman literally feeds off of what others produce. But his eventual discovery of his family history gives his life purpose. Although he remains flawed, this newfound purpose makes him compassionate and caring.

Willie Mink

Project manager responsible for the drug Dylar. Willie Mink conducts experimental tests of the drug from his motel room, trading Dylar for sex. Willie remains a mysterious figure through most of the novel, known only as "Mr. Gray." When we finally encounter him in the last two chapters of the novel, Willie has gone half-crazy and spends his days staring vacantly at a soundless television. Jack becomes fixated on Willie Mink, partly because he wants revenge for Mink and Babette's affair and party because he wants to obtain a supply of Dylar for himself.

The Combination of Poetry and Prose

Silko's use of poetry invokes the rhythmic, communal storytelling patterns of the Native Americans, while her use of prose belongs to a Western narrative tradition. By combining the two in her novel, Silko asserts that the form as well as the content of the story is about the blending of the two cultures. Thematically, white and Native American cultures clash with each other more often than they complement each other, but the prose and poetry weave together easily. In many ways, they tell the same story; "only thing is," as Grandma says at the end, "the names sound different." The entire stories sound different as well, as versification (the division of the verses), rhyming, alliteration (the repetition of the first letter of a word), and repetition give the poems a distinctive rhythm. The poem at the end of the novel completes the line on the page before the first prose section, enclosing the entire novel within a poem. In other words, just as whites are said to be an invention of Native American witchcraft, so is a Western form of storytelling shown to be contained within a Native American form of storytelling.

Sing

Sing - Milkman's grandmother and Macon Dead I's wife. Sing is an Indian woman also known as Singing Bird. Sing's name commands Macon Dead I, Pilate, and Milkman to connect the missing links of their family history through Solomon's song.

Gladys Treadwell

Sister of Old Man Treadwell. She dies soon after she and her brother get lost in a shopping mall for several days.

Solomon

Solomon - Milkman's great-grandfather, who supposedly flew back to Africa but dropped his son Jake shortly after taking off. Solomon's flight is a physical demonstration of the liberation that is felt when a person escapes confining circumstances. However, Solomon's crying wife, Ryna, and traumatized children show that escape has negative consequences as well.

Biblical Allusions

Song of Solomon's title refers to the biblical book of the same name, emphasizing that the novel adresses age-old themes. The biblical book depicts a conversation between two lovers, King Solomon and his beautiful, black Shulamite bride. Similarly, Morrison's novel is a celebration of the triumph of earthly love. Morrison gives her characters biblical names in order to align them with well-known figures. As a result, many of the characters in Song of Solomon carry with them not only their own personal history as described in the novel, but also the history of a biblical namesake. By giving her characters the names of biblical figures, Morrison compares them to epic heroes whose experience transcends cultural and temporal boundaries. For instance, the biblical Hagar is Sarah's handmaiden, who bears Sarah's husband Abraham a son and is then banished from his sight. Likewise, Morrison's Hagar is used by Milkman, who enjoys her offerings. The similarity of both Hagars' experiences suggests that women will be abused in any patriarchal society.

Lily and Nona Foster

Poor and set in their ways, Sylvia's two elderly sisters-in-law move from Spokane to Fingerbone to take care of Ruthie and Lucille after Sylvia's death. As their nerves and habits don't lend themselves to foster-mothering, they are delighted when a note from Sylvie arrives from Montana.

Who wrote Song of Solomon?

Toni Morrison

White Noise

White Noise, in keeping with its title, consists of a chorus of background sounds that hum throughout the narrative. The traffic hums, Babette hums, the supermarket is filled with endless sounds, and commercials and fragments of television shows continually interrupt the narrative. Jack perceives the world as essentially constituted by this cacophony, as a stream of sounds, some human, some artificial. Jack and Babette speculate that perhaps death is nothing but an awful, endless stream of white noise, and so white noise filters into the narrative and becomes part of it, just as death becomes part of nearly every conversation had by the characters. These noises are not simply the background sounds of life—they are part of life, the very substance of which our days are made.

Sundar Chakravarty

Jack's doctor

Tommy Roy Foster

A convicted killer serving time in a penitentiary. Heinrich plays chess with Tommy Roy Foster via mail.

the woman

A sacred figure in Laguna cosmology incarnated as Ts'eh to help Tayo in his ceremony. Ts'eh appears at three moments in Tayo's journey to help him with the cattle and to teach him about wild herbs, love, and evading his pursuers.

Here they were, trying to bring back that old feeling, that feeling they belonged to America the way they felt during the war. They blamed themselves for losing the new feeling; they never talked about it, but they blamed themselves just like they blamed themselves for losing the land the white people took. They never thought to blame the white people for any of it; they wanted white people for their friends. They never saw that it was the white people who gave them that feeling and it was the white people who took it away again when the war was over.

After they return to the reservation, the young men who fought in World War II often meet at the bars on the reservation line to drink and reminisce. As Tayo accompanies Harley to the bar, shortly after his first session with Ku'oosh, he remembers the last time they went, along with Leroy and Emo, on a similar outing. Emo and Tayo have never gotten along well, however, and on that occasion, under the influence of alcohol, Tayo became so disgusted and infuriated with Emo that he stabbed him in the stomach with a broken beer bottle. This quote demonstrates the elements on Emo's vision that set Tayo off. In this passage, Tayo, and the narrator as he (or she) is aligned with Tayo, expose Emo's reaction to Tayo's identification of internalized racism. Even in the face of Tayo's analysis of the phenomenon, Emo provides a classic example of internalized racism. He believes the point of view of the white racists. He blames himself and the other victims of racism for being its cause. For the brief period when they wore the US Army uniforms, Emo and the other Native Americans were able to escape from much of the racism, which had always plagued their lives. Emo, and many others who internalize racism, does not see that there is a systemic problem, and only wishes desperately to recapture the one moment when it did not operate as usual. As a result, Emo is not able to understand that when he put on the uniform, it was not he who changed but the whites' perception of him. He does not recognize the racism that leads whites to mistreat Native Americans, be it in the form of unfair land deals or the denial of equal access to respect and jobs after the war. As Tayo and the narrator evaluate Emo's internalized racism, they show it to be almost as detrimental to Native Americans as is the racism of the whites.

Whiteness

Almost all of the characters in Song of Solomon are black. The few white characters represent violence and wrongdoing. After Guitar's father is cut in half during a sawmill accident, for example, the mill's white foreman offers the family almost no sympathy or financial support. Likewise, Circe's wealthy white employers, the Butlers, are murderers. When they take Macon Dead I's land, they end his children's innocence. Even white animals carry negative connotations. A white bull causes Freddie's mother to go into labor and die. The bull's interference with Freddie's birth represents white people's devastating interference with the African-American world. Likewise, the white peacock that causes Guitar and Milkman to become infatuated with the pursuit of wealth represents the corrupting influence of greed.

Edmund Foster

Although this patriarch is already dead when the novel begins, his decision to settle in the lonesome northwest town of Fingerbone haunts the lives of all the women who survive him. The victim of an eerie nighttime train derailment, his unexpected death forces his wife to raise their three daughters alone.

a hunter

An animal spirit sacred to the Native Americans. He appears to Tayo in both his animal and his human forms to help him catch Josiah's cattle.

Wilder

Babette's six-year-old son, and the youngest child in the family. Wilder never speaks in the novel, and periodically Jack worries about the boy's slow linguistic development. Nevertheless, in his wordlessness, he remains an essential source of comfort for both Jack and Babette. More than any of the other children, Wilder seems genuinely open to the kind of "psychic data" Murray believes American children are privy to. Wilder has an older full brother, Eugene, though their father remains unnamed in the novel.

Man's guilt in history and in the tides of his own blood has been complicated by technology, the daily seeping falsehearted death.

At the beginning of Chapter 6, Jack considers his son's premature hair loss and wonders if he or Heinrich's mother might be responsible for their son's thinning hair, by having unwittingly consumed toxic foods or raising the boy in the proximity of industrial waste. Jack begins with a specific, particular observation but soon brings the problem of Heinrich's thinning hair into a wider, universal context. Heinrich's relatively insignificant hair loss illustrates the novel's greater concern with the way technology has unwittingly changed fundamental aspects of life. Jack's individual genes might be responsible for Heinrich's balding, but, given the pervasiveness of chemicals in the modern world, it's impossible to determine who or what, exactly, is at fault. Man's culpability is no longer obvious in many situations, since to some degree technology has begun to operate outside of man's control. Technology has not only blurred the lines between what we are and are not accountable for, but it has also eroded away, like Heinrich's hairline, some essential part of our lives. This passage sets the stage for the airborne toxic event and for Jack's eventual confrontation with his own technologically induced death, via Nyodene D.

Sister Hermann Marie

Atheist German nun who treats Jack for his bullet wound. Sister Hermann Marie tells Jack that she doesn't believe in heaven but that she and the other nuns maintain the illusion of faith for the rest of the world's sake.

Robert

Auntie's husband. Robert is a mild-mannered quiet man who has little power in the family. He generally minds his own business, adhering to the old traditions. Robert shows his deep caring for Tayo as he welcomes him home from the war and as he warns him of Emo's impending attack.

What if death is nothing but sound?" "Electrical noise." "You hear it forever. Sound all around. How awful." "Uniform, white."

Babette and Jack's conversation about the substance of death in the middle of Chapter 26 is the first and only time that white noise becomes specifically equated with death. Throughout the novel, Jack's acute awareness of the noise that surrounds him has been an integral part of his character and narrative style. For Jack, life is made up of a never-ending hum of sounds, which emanate from the radio, television, traffic, air, and the people in his life. He hears sound wherever he is, which, given his fear of death, is now understandable. Jack's fear of dying has been the principal motive behind many of his life choices, from his study of Hitler to his failed marriages. We can see now that this fear also relates to his very perception of reality as an assemblage of sounds. To some degree, Jack already lives in the white noise of death he is so afraid of.

Bob Pardee

Babette's all-American ex-husband.

Denise

Babette's eleven-year-old daughter with Bob Pardee. Denise is a sharp, often bossy girl and continually nags Babette about her health. She is the first person to notice her mother's memory lapses, and she discovers Babette's secret supply of Dylar.

Vernon Dickey

Babette's father. Vernon is a rough, good-natured man, seemingly unafraid of dying, who works with his hands and knows how to build things. His skill and ability make Jack feel incompetent and less masculine. Vernon drops by unexpectedly for a visit and gives Jack a loaded gun when he leaves.

Winnie Richards

Brilliant neuroscientist at the College-on-the-Hill. Winnie helps Jack learn about Dylar and Willie Mink. Jack discovers that she is almost always impossible to find, since she goes out of her way to be unnoticed.

Who wrote White Noise?

Don DeLillo

Dr. Foster

Dr. Foster - The first black doctor in the novel's Michigan town. Dr. Foster is an arrogant, self-hating racist who calls fellow African-Americans "cannibals" and checks to see how light-skinned his granddaughters are when they are born. His status as an educated black man at a time when many blacks were illiterate makes him an important symbol of personal triumph while contrasting with his racist attitude.

Plots

Early in the novel, Jack states that all plots tend toward death. Jack repeats this simple statement several times throughout the novel, and it serves as a structural guide for the narrative. Since Jack is afraid of death, it seems logical that he would avoid plots, and indeed the story he narrates seems to meander, without any commitment to a straightforward, propulsive plot. However, once Jack becomes exposed to Nyodene D.—and, therefore, aware of his own inevitable mortality—the story begins to gain momentum and starts to resemble a conventional plot. Suspense, mystery, infidelity, and a gun rapidly enter the narrative. DeLillo's plot becomes so deliberately structured that it almost seems like a satire of narrative plots. Jack's initial statement turns out to be true—plots do tend toward death. In that regard, the book's structure was evident from the start.

Old Man Treadwell

Elderly blind man, to whom Babette reads tabloids. One day, Old Man Treadwell and his sister, Gladys, go missing for several days. They are later discovered, lost and confused, in a shopping mall.

First Corinthians Dead

First Corinthians Dead - Milkman's worldly sister, educated at Bryn Mawr and in France. First Corinthians shares her name with a New Testament book in which the apostle Paul seeks to mend the disagreements within the early Christian church. Like the biblical book, the character First Corinthians tries to unify people. Her passionate love affair with a yardman, Henry Porter, crosses class boundaries. Her actions prove that human beings of different backgrounds and ages can share a bond.

The Gallup Ceremonial

Every year, the white mayor and council of Gallup organize a Ceremonial. The Gallup Ceremonial symbolizes the ways in which whites misunderstand Native American tradition and appropriate it for their own purposes. Dancers from a wide range of Native American groups are invited the Gallup Ceremonial and are paid for their performances. This demonstrates the whites' lack of comprehension of the differences between Native American tribes, as well as their ignorance of the specific purpose of each individual ceremony. Whereas traditional ceremonies are performed around important events or times of year, with a specific ritual meaning, the Gallup Ceremonial is intended purely for the entertainment of whites. In addition, for the rest of the year, the town of Gallup at best ignores and at worst promotes the racist mistreatment of Native Americans, symbolizing the ways in which whites are eager to praise Native American artifacts but do not want to deal with the ongoing lives of real Native Americans.

Artificial Roses

First Corinthians and Lena make artificial roses that represent the stifling life of the upper class and the oppression of women. The roses do not bring in much money; the true purpose of the activity is to provide a mindless distraction from their boredom. First Corinthians and Lena perform their task without any enthusiasm, motivated by habit rather than conviction. In literary works, living roses often symbolize love. The artificial roses sybolize the absence of love in Macon Jr.'s household. Unlike living plants, the artificial flowers convey only the depression of their makers.

Freddie

Freddie - A janitor employed by Macon Jr. Freddie is the town gossip. Freddie spreads rumors through the town, illustrating how information was often disseminated within African-American communities. Freddie coins the nickname "Milkman" for Ruth's son, showing that original names are often forgotten and replaced.

Gold

Gold represents Macon Jr.'s obsessive pursuit of wealth. Gold is utterly irresistible to men in the novel, who violate their principles in order to get it. For example, Milkman robs his aunt, Pilate, because he wants to be wealthy and independent. Likewise, Guitar's desire for gold motivates his attempted murder of Milkman. Finally, Macon Jr. spends a lifetime pursuing gold without any greater goal beyond accumulation.

Guitar Bains

Guitar Bains - Milkman's best friend. Having grown up in poverty after his father was killed in a factory accident, Guitar harbors a lifelong hatred for white people, whom he sees as responsible for all evil in the world. Morrison points out that while Guitar's rage is justifiable, his murders of white people neither combat racism nor help the African-American community.

Hagar

Hagar - Pilate's granddaughter and Milkman's lover. Hagar devotes herself to Milkman, even though he loses interest and frequently rejects her. Like her biblical namesake—a servant who, after bearing Abraham's son is thrown out of the house by his barren wife, Sarah—Hagar is used and abandoned. Her plight demonstrates a central theme in Song of Solomon: the inevitable abandonment of women who love men too much.

Orest Mercator

Heinrich's friend, a nineteen-year-old senior at Heinrich's high school. Orest wants to set a new world record for sitting in a cage with poisonous snakes. He claims to be unafraid of dying, which Jack, with his own powerful fear of death, finds fascinating.

Sylvie Fisher

Helen's younger sister is a tall, gentle thirty-five-year-old woman who evades questions about her marriage. Although she has spent her adult life as a drifter, she returns to Fingerbone to take care of her nieces. Childless and childlike, Sylvie's inability to keep house doesn't interfere with her attachment to Ruthie and Lucille. But Fingerbone's sheriff doesn't agree, and, all the while, the bridge across the lake beckons.

Henry Porter

Henry Porter - First Corinthians's lover and a member of the Seven Days vigilante group, which murders white people. Porter's tender love affair with First Corinthians proves that a personal connection between two human beings is stronger than differences of background and class.

The Pervasiveness of Technology

In White Noise, the pervasive presence of technology proves both menacing and comforting. Throughout the novel, in counterpoint to the human babble of Jack's friends, family, and neighbors, modern technology asserts itself through the humming of machines and the constant stream of media sounds and images. Technology has become as much a part of the texture of daily of life as humans are themselves. In fact, the two seem inextricable, as DeLillo's narrative weaves seamlessly between human and mechanical voices.Faceless and beyond the grasp of the individual, technology makes everyone anonymous. Sometimes, this distance and objectivity seems comforting, as when the ATM confirms Jack's own financial calculations, and Jack becomes filled with a sense of peace. At other times, this detachment proves threatening, as when the SIMUVAC technician, after punching Jack's details into a computer, manages to learn something of incredible significance about Jack yet cannot (or will not) give Jack any concrete information. The airborne toxic event, a dense, threatening cloud of dangerous chemicals, provides a particularly frightening image of technology gone terribly, fatally awry. Yet even this seemingly overt symbol of technology's capacity for destruction proves more complex than it first appears, as the airborne toxic event paradoxically causes the most beautiful sunsets the region has ever seen. The chemical cloud is noxious and lethal, but it also creates beauty. When Steffie mumbles "Toyota Celica" in her sleep, a similar tension is being evoked, as a crass marketing term becomes transformed, in Jack's eyes, into something mystical and beautiful. The phrase, which seems to represent cold, mechanized modernity, ends up expressing something primal and deeply human.

Howar Dunlop

Jack's German teacher. Solitary and taciturn, Howard lives in the same boardinghouse as Murray.

Heinrich

Jack's awkward, analytical fourteen-year-old son with Janet Savory. Heinrich is dispassionate and skeptical and endlessly contradicts his father. Heinrich was born in the same year Jack founded the Hitler studies department, and he was given a German name in honor of that event.

All plots tend to move deathward. This is the nature of plots.

Jack's closing statement to his seminar at the end of Chapter 6 reverberates throughout the novel. The statement initially refers to the assassination attempt on Hitler, but it quickly takes on a larger significance once it becomes clear that death is Jack's greatest fear. Plot can be defined as "a secret plan"—as in, the plot to assassinate Hitler—but the word can also refer to a novel's pattern of significant events. In most narratives, the central plot has a momentum, bringing the characters toward some kind of ending or resolution. Jack believes that all plots bring their characters toward death. We might take this formulation metaphorically, in the sense that the ending of a novel is, in some way, the moment when a novel dies. But Jack seems to interpret this comment literally, believing that he himself will die if he gets enmeshed in a plot. This explains, then, why the narrative seems to take a meandering, circuitous shape, actively resisting any major plot development. Details accumulate and characters develop, but not until the third section of the novel does an actual plot become evident. Once it does, however, the intrigue, mystery, and action quickly pile up, and the narrative moves toward death, just as Jack believed it would.

Tweedy Bonner

Jack's ex-wife, and Bee's mother. Tweedy is remarried to a high-level jungle operative named Malcolm Hunt. Tweedy visits with Jack for a while and confesses that Malcolm's extended periods spent living abroad under assumed identities make her anxious about her husband's true identity.

Janet Savory

Jack's ex-wife, and Heinrich's mother. Janet now lives in ashram and is known as Mother Devi. Before that, however, she was a foreign-currency analyst for a secret group of advanced theorists.

Dana Breedlove

Jack's ex-wife, and Steffie's mother. Dana is a contract agent for the CIA who conducts covert drop-offs in Latin America. According to Jack, Dana liked to plot and often got him entangled in domestic and faculty battles.

Hitler

Jack's interest in Hitler as a historical figure relates only tangentially to the historical man, Adolf Hitler, and the genocide and war he instigated. Hitler's importance to Jack rests almost exclusively in the sheer size and stature of Hitler's persona. As perhaps the most hated and feared figure of the twentieth century, Hitler has spawned a myth larger than life and, as Murray notes, larger than death. The name Hitler invokes the Holocaust and the massive destruction caused by World War II, rendering Hitler the man a symbol for death and devastation. Though Jack remains fixated on the fear of his own death, he realizes that the wide-scale extermination caused by Hitler dwarfs his individual death. By wrapping himself in Hitler's image and subsuming himself in Hitler's persona, Jack hopes that he too can become greater than death and stave off his insignificant fear.

Bee

Jack's pensive, twelve-year-old daughter from his marriage to Tweedy Bonner. Bee is a worldly, cosmopolitan child, and in this regard she makes Jack highly self-conscious and uncomfortable.

Steffie

Jack's seven-year-old daughter with Dana Breedlove. Steffie is far more sensitive than the other children in her family and has trouble watching television shows where characters get hurt or humiliated.

Babette

Jack's wife, and the mother of Wilder and Denise. Loving and caring, with a head of messy blond hair, Babette's sturdy and guileless character proves highly reassuring to Jack, particularly given the secretive, high-strung women he's been married to in the past. Babette teaches adult education classes and reads to an elderly blind man named Old Man Treadwell. Like her husband, Babette has a deep-seated, acute fear of dying. She keeps this hidden from Jack and secretly begins participating in an experimental drug trial to alleviate her fear. As the treatment progresses, she has frequent memory lapses and becomes increasingly evasive.

Night Swan

Josiah's girlfriend. Night Swan is a strong, smart, sexy, self-aware woman. She is the first of two Mexican women who appear in the novel to represent an aspect of the contact between white and Native American cultures. A former cantina dancer, she also seduces Tayo in order to teach him his first lesson about miscegenation and change.

Who wrote Ceremony?

Leslie Marmon Silko

Macon Dead I

Macon Dead I - Macon Jr.'s father and Milkman's grandfather, Macon Dead I is also known as Jake. Macon Dead I was abandoned in infancy when his father, Solomon, flew back to Africa and his mother, Ryna, went insane. Macon Dead I was raised by an Indian woman, Heddy. The mysterious legend of his identity motivates Milkman's search for self-understanding.

Macon Jr.

Macon Jr. - Milkman's father and Ruth's husband, also known as Macon Dead II. Traumatized by seeing his father murdered during a skirmish over the family farm, Macon Jr. has developed an obsession with becoming wealthy. In the process, he has become an emotionally dead slumlord. His stony heart softens only when he reminisces about his childhood. Macon Jr.'s stories about his childhood help fuel Milkman's investigation into the history of the Dead family.

Pilate

Macon Jr.'s younger sister. Born without a navel, Pilate is physically and psychologically unlike the novel's other characters. She is a fearless mother who is selflessly devoted to others. Pilate is responsible for Milkman's safe birth and continues to protect him for years afterward. She also takes care of her daughter, Reba, and granddaughter, Hagar.

Magdalene Dead

Magdalene Dead - Another of Milkman's sisters, also known as Lena. Lena's submissive attitude in Macon Jr.'s home makes her one of the many submissive women who populate Song of Solomon. But her rebuke of Milkman's selfishness demonstrates her inner strength.

O Solomon don't leave me here Cotton balls to choke me O Solomon don't leave me here Buckra's arms to yoke me Solomon done fly, Solomon done gone Solomon cut across the sky, Solomon gone home.

Milkman hears Shalimar children singing these lyrics, a part of Solomon's song, in Chapter 12. The song connects Milkman to his family's past and provides him with crucial stories about his grandfather, Jake, and his great-grandparents, Solomon and Ryna. Solomon's song implies that when men free themselves from oppression they often leave women behind. "O Solomon don't leave me here" describes Ryna's descent into desperation and madness as Solomon prepares for his flight. Although Solomon escapes slavery, his flight leaves Ryna to take care of their children while working in the cotton fields. The theme of male liberation coming at the expense of female oppression is reflected in Milkman's relationship with Hagar, and recurs throughout Morrison's novel. Even though Solomon's flight dooms Ryna to abandonment and his children to orphanhood, the song suggests that his flight is still a magnificent achievement. Solomon's song ends with a description of Solomon's flight rather than with a description of Ryna's deprivation. This ending shows the ultimate triumph of liberation. As a result, when Milkman learns that the song is actually about his family, he is not saddened, but inspired. Though tainted by the pain of abandonment, Solomon's flight is an important part of Milkman's heritage. In learning about Solomon's story, Milkman learns pieces of his own, allowing him, finally, to fly free—literally and figuratively.

Jack Gladney

Narrator of the novel, and the chairman of Hitler studies at the College-on-the-Hill. Jack lives in Blacksmith, a quiet college town, with his fourth wife, Babette, and four of their children from previous marriages. Jack often worries that he will be found lacking or incompetent, and as such he surrounds himself with things that make him look weighty and dignified by association. Jack, like every American, faces a continuous barrage of health and safety warnings from such sources as the news media and the packaging on the consumer goods he buys. Consequently, Jack is obsessed with the fear of his own death, a persistent dread that becomes magnified by his exposure to a toxic substance. Jack loves his wife, Babette, deeply, finding great comfort in her honesty and strength.

Murray Jay Siskind

One of several professors from New York who teach at the College-on-the-Hill. Murray always speaks in an exaggerated academic style and is preoccupied with the deconstruction and analysis of American popular culture. His ambition is to create a department devoted to studying Elvis, much like Jack's Hitler studies department.

Dimitros Cotaskis

One of the New York professors at the College-on-the-Hill. Dimitros is a large man and former bodyguard. He is Murray's principal competitor in Elvis studies, until he dies in a drowning accident.

Jungle rain had no beginning or end; it grew like foliage from the sky, branching and arching to the earth, sometimes in solid thickets entangling the islands, and, other times, in tendrils of blue mist curling out of coastal clouds. The jungle breathed an eternal green that fevered men until they dripped sweat the way rubbery jungle leaves dripped the monsoon rain. It was there that Tayo began to understand what Josiah had said. Nothing was all good or all bad either; it all depended.

One of the most important lessons Tayo learns in the course of the novel is that everything has both its positive and its negative aspects. This moment of realization comes early in the novel, as Tayo, newly returned to the reservation, remembers the most traumatic moments of his service in World War II, which include Rocky's death, at least in part from gangrene caused by the effect of the wet conditions on his wounds. Although this lesson is stated within the first fifteen pages of the story, its wording is key. Tayo does not understand the lesson; he only begins to understand it. It will take the rest of the novel for Tayo to come to a full comprehension of the intricate interrelations of all things. Although the message is simple, almost cliché, it cannot be taken lightly nor learned easily. Not only can the rain, so desperately prayed for on the desert reservation, be as bad as it is good, so also can whites, so detrimental to the Native American customs, also be an integral element in the ceremony that cures Tayo and his community. Although Josiah dies before Tayo returns from the Philippines, his teachings are among the most important in Tayo's life. As a child, Josiah was Tayo's male role model. Josiah initiated Tayo into Native American cosmology and also into the need to adapt to the ever-changing world, with the help of simple age-old lessons such as this one.

Robert Smith

Robert Smith - An insurance agent and member of the Seven Days vigilante group. Smith's attempt to fly off of the roof of Mercy Hospital begins the novel's exploration of flight as a means of escape. Smith's failure to fly contrasts with Milkman's eventual success in escaping the confining circumstances of his life.

The Alienating Effects of Racism

Racism is the central cause of suffering in the novel. Racism has long-lasting damaging effects on the community. Slavery causes Solomon to flee toward freedom and end his marriage to Ryna. This flight begins many generations of trauma. The knowledge that his father died because of his white employers' negligence makes Guitar especially sensitive to the injustices perpetrated against African-Americans. Emmett Till's murder and the Birmingham Church bombing remind Guitar of his own tragedy, transforming him into a ruthless, vengeful murderer. Guitar's story shows that racism alienates its victims from their native communities and causes them to lose touch with their own humanity.

Reba

Reba - Pilate's daughter and Hagar's mother, also known as Rebecca. Reba has a strong sexual drive but is attracted to abusive men. Nevertheless, because Pilate is her mother, the few men who dare mistreat her are punished. Reba's uncanny ability to win contests such as the Sears half-millionth customer diamond ring giveaway demonstrates that wealth is transient and unimportant.

Ruth Foster Dead

Ruth Foster Dead - Macon Jr.'s wife and the mother of Milkman, First Corinthians, and Lena. After growing up in a wealthy home, Ruth feels unloved by everyone except her deceased father, Dr. Foster. Although her existence is joyless, she refuses to leave Macon Jr. for a new life, proving that wealth's hold is difficult to overcome.

Lucille

Ruthie's red-haired younger sister is embarrassed by Sylvie's eccentric habits and longs to go to Boston just "because it isn't Fingerbone." By the novel's end, she is perhaps the loneliest character of all.

Ryna

Ryna - Milkman's great-grandmother and Solomon's wife. When Solomon abandons her, Ryna goes mad. According to legend, her cries can still be heard.

Auntie

Tayo's aunt. As the eldest daughter in her family, Auntie is in charge of running the household and caring for the family. Although she performs her duties diligently, Auntie is a proud and spiteful woman. She is largely responsible for Tayo's sense of exclusion from his family. In addition to following the old Native American traditions almost blindly, Auntie is a devout Christian who thrives on martyrdom.

Harley

Tayo's childhood friend. Harley returns from fighting in World War II apparently less troubled than Tayo but with a severe alcohol addiction. Harley tries to be a good friend to Tayo but is impeded by his alcoholism.

The Importance of Storytelling

Storytelling in the context of Ceremony refers not only to the general process of telling a story but also to the particular Native American tradition of storytelling. Traditionally, Native American cultural is oral, and everything from biology to history to morality to medicine is passed on in the form of stories. While the elders in a community may be the official storytellers, storytelling is a profoundly communal event. Since stories are intended to pass on information that will be remembered, they are often rhythmic, almost sung, and contain a large amount of repetition. This mode of storytelling is presented in Ceremony in the form of poems, both framing the main narrative (at the beginning and end) and interspersed throughout. These stories are in fact traditional Pueblo stories, known outside of the context of the novel. Tayo's tale reflects the traditional stories but is original. Along with the arrangement of the prose and poem passages, it can be seen as Silko's personal intervention in the communal process of storytelling.While the prose sections of Ceremony are primarily narrated in a third person limited voice, the poems vary between first and third person. They announce the elements of this theme that will recur throughout the novel. Stories have the power to heal: they contain the rituals and ceremonies that can cure individuals and communities. They do this primarily by reminding us of the interrelations between all people and all things. As a story is told communally or is shared by one person with another, it creates a sense of community between those people. The presence of both the first and third person in the poems reinforces this aspect. For Tayo, the stories represent the Native American understanding of the world that he grew up with but that the white schools, the army, and the doctors and the VA hospital tried to convince him were incorrect. As he remembers and reenacts the old stories, Tayo reconnects with his community, recovers from the trauma of the war, and returns the rain to his land. The stories teach Tayo that he is not alone, both because he shares stories with a whole community and also because content of the ancient stories remind him that others before him have had similar experiences—he is not alone, and there is always hope for renewal.

Rocky

Tayo's cousin and adoptive brother. He represents for Tayo and his family the perfect success of a Native American to integrate white society. Much to everyone's dismay, Rocky dies in the Philippines during World War II.

Grandma

Tayo's grandmother and the matriarch of the family. Already old and wise when Tayo is just a child, Grandma intervenes at key moments in Tayo's life to bring him to the medicine men or to provide tidbits of advice in the form of seemingly random comments.

Laura

Tayo's mother. Unable to negotiate the conflicting lessons she learned at home and at school, Laura became a victim of the contact between white and Native American cultures. Consumed by alcoholism, she conceived Tayo with an anonymous white man and, by the time Tayo was four years old, she was completely unable to care for him.

Josiah

Tayo's uncle. Josiah is the person who teaches Tayo the Native American traditions and makes him feel most at home in the family. Although he adheres strongly to tradition, Josiah is not afraid of change, falling in love with the Mexican Night Swan and following her advice to undertake raising a herd of Mexican cattle crossbred with Herefords.

Sweet

Sweet - A prostitute with whom Milkman has a brief affair. Unlike Milkman's affairs with other women, especially Hagar, his relationship with Sweet is mutually respectful and entirely reciprocal. His interactions with her demonstrate that the most gratifying relationships in the novel are those in which both partners treat each other as equals.

Sylvia Foster

Sylvia continues to live in her Fingerbone house, with no thought of flight after her husband's death. She raises her children Molly, Helen, and Sylvie with neither complaint nor affection, the same way she cares for Helen's daughters, Ruthie and Lucille, until her own lonely death at 76.

The word he chose to express "fragile" was filled with the intricacies of a continuing process, and with a strength inherent in spider webs woven across paths through sand hills where early in the morning the sun becomes entangled in each filament of web. It took a long time to explain the fragility and intricacy because no word exists alone, and the reason for choosing each word had to be explained with a story about why it must be said this certain way. That was the responsibility that went with being human, old Ku'oosh said, the story behind each word must be told so there could be no mistake in the meaning of what had been said; and this demanded great patience and love.

Tayo returns home from the war both sick with malaria and deeply troubled on an emotional level. His stay at the Veteran's Hospital does little to help with the latter problem. Once home, as soon as he is well enough to get out of bed, Tayo's Grandma arranges for him to see the medicine man, Ku'oosh. Ku'oosh begins his ceremony by repeating to Tayo the names and locations of the places that are sacred to the Laguna, and the basis of their understanding of the world. With Spider Woman as one of the most important figures in Pueblo mythology, the metaphor of the web is most appropriate for describing their world-view. Throughout the novel, animals and plants serve as symbols of the deep connection the Pueblo people have with the natural world. Although the entire novel is written in English, we have been informed that in this section Ku'oosh speaks to Tayo "using the old dialect." Although we read English words, it is insisted upon that these are only a translation of the original language in which Ku'oosh's words are uttered. In addition, in that language the particular choice of individual words is of prime importance. As this is insisted on, the reader is reminded that although we can read and understand Ceremony, it does not offer us complete access to every element either of the original story or, more significantly, of Laguna culture.

Nonlinear Narrative Structure

The Native Americans of the Pueblo see time as cyclical rather than linear. Silko produces a text that emphasizes this notion by using a nonlinear narrative structure. In most of Western literature, narrative proceeds in a temporal succession from beginning to end and from earlier to later. Although features such as analepsis (shifting back in time) and prolepsis (shifting forward in time) are standard, they are generally clearly marked and take up much less of the time and space of the novel than does the primary narrative. In Ceremony, on the other hand, it is often difficult to distinguish between primary and secondary narratives, or between past and present. Silko switches back and forth from Tayo's childhood to his time in the Philippines to various moments after his return, following no order except the order of thematic connections between the different events. The entire novel is narrated in the past tense, so whether an event actually occurred before Tayo's birth or in the midst of the ceremony, it appears to happen at the same time. The effect of this is to recreate a Pueblo sense of time, where all things are cyclic and where their immediacy is related not to how long ago they happened but to how important they feel in the present.

The Airborne Toxic Event

The airborne toxic event, caused by a train derailment, embodies the artificial, technology-induced danger that is characteristic of the modern world. The substance behind the event, Nyodene D., is a derivation of an original chemical, suggesting the terrible potential of mechanical replication. The symptoms and potentially lethal effects of the airborne toxic event are never certain or clear, and in that regard they are part of the "daily falsehearted death" of technology that Jack notes. Jack describes the toxic cloud in mythological terms, giving the event historical proportions. Previous eras had death ships, as Jack notes, while the modern era has a dark, billowing cloud full of man-made toxins. This is our new symbol and the new face of dread, the modern death ship with its unknown and unintended consequences threatening the edges of our lives.

The Destructiveness of Contact Between Cultures

The contact between Native American and white cultures in Ceremony is largely destructive. While the novel presents its devastating effects in somber terms, it is not concerned with simply lamenting the fact that whites arrived on the American continent and established systems that prove fatal to the indigenous peoples. Rather, Ceremony presents an attempt to contend with the reality of a mixed cultural landscape in a way that allows Native American culture to persist, even as it changes. Tayo himself embodies the contact between Native American and white cultures, as he bears his mixed racial heritage in his green eyes. Tayo must learn to make use of the white parts of himself and of the world around him, without abandoning his primary allegiance to Native American traditions.For many in the novel, the first contact between the cultures takes place in the white schools that the Native Americans attend. There, white teachers tell them that their stories are not true and that their understanding of the world is not valid. Most significant, the white teachers present a completely different view of science and nature, and, as a result, the younger generations of Native Americans want to abandon traditional farming practices. This creates an agricultural crisis that is exacerbated by the pollution of reservation lands by white mines and military industry. In addition, white towns attract Native Americans with the prospect of white-collar jobs and good pay, but racism denies Native Americans access to those positions, while the cash they are able to make allows them greater access to the bars and the alcoholism whites have also introduced. All of these serve as strong indictments of the effect of whites on Native American culture. However, the relationship between white and Native American cultures is completely shifted in Ceremony when Betonie reveals that whites are an invention of Native American witchcraft. In the revelation, although they are still a primarily destructive force, whites are shown to be a part of Native American culture and traditions.

Flight as a Means of Escape

The epigraph to Song of Solomon—"The fathers may soar / And the children may know their names"—is the first reference to one of the novel's most important themes. While flight can be an escape from constricting circumstances, it also scars those who are left behind. Solomon's flight allowed him to leave slavery in the Virginia cotton fields, but it also meant abandoning his wife, Ryna, with twenty-one children. While Milkman's flight from Michigan frees him from the dead environment of Not Doctor Street, his flight is also selfish because it causes Hagar to die of heartbreak. The novel's epigraph attempts to break the connection between flight and abandonment. Because Pilate, as Milkman notes, is able to fly without ever lifting her feet off the ground, she has mastered flight, managing to be free of subjugation without leaving anyone behind. Morrison's extensive use of flying as a literal and not just metaphorical event pushes Song of Solomon toward the genre of magical realism. The novel's characters accept human flight as natural. For instance, the observers of Robert Smith's flight encourage him rather than rush to prevent his leap, implying that they do not see his flight as a suicide attempt. Instead, the onlookers behave as though Smith's flight might be possible. Furthermore, the residents of Shalimar, Virginia, do not think that Solomon's flight is a myth; they believe that the flight actually occurred. Morrison's novel belongs to the genre of magical realism because in it human flight is both possible and natural. For the long period of time during which Milkman doubts the possibility of human flight, he remains abnormal in the eyes of his community. Only when he begins to believe in the reality of flight does he cease to feel alienated.

The Fear of Death

The fear of death lies at the center of White Noise. As Babette notes when she confesses her fear to Jack, "What is more underlying than death?" Everything in the novel—from Hitler to the supermarket, from the airborne toxic event to the white noise of the novel's title—circles back to human beings' primal, deep-seated fear of dying. DeLillo's novel details how modern life attempts to push this fear out of sight, and yet, as in the character of Jack Gladney, the fear continues to resurface and fill us with dread.Different characters in the novel approach death in different, often contradictory ways. Jack approaches it with terror. Heinrich faces death dispassionately and analytically. Murray sees death all around him and remains continually fascinated and engaged by it. Winnie Richards notes that death adds texture to life, while Jack and Babette would give anything to avoid it. Jack and Babette speculate that death might be nothing more than an eternal hum of white noise: detached bits of data, garbled gibberish, and meaningless sounds, all vibrating at an equal frequency so that nothing in particular stands out and everything remains potentially significant. However, this description could also apply to Jack's life and to White Noise in general. While there is a general plotline in the novel, the bulk of the book is comprised of digressions, tangential conversations, and snippets of overheard machines and broadcasts. Though DeLillo avoids drawing any distinct conclusions himself, preferring to leave the novel in an open state, this close relationship between life, death, and white noise might mean that death lingers menacingly in the background of our lives, or it might mean that death, as an inextricable part of life, represents something we shouldn't be afraid of. Both attitudes seem supported by the novel, which presents white noise—and the stronger, yet more elusive strain of sound that people like Murray and Jack detect behind that white noise—as simultaneously a thing of dread and of intangible transcendence.

Old Grandma shook her head slowly, and closed her cloudy eyes again. "I guess I must be getting old, " she said, "because these goings-on around Laguna don't get me excited any more." She sighed, and laid her head back on the chair. "It seems like I already heard these stories before—only thing is, the names sound different."

The last lines in the prose section of Ceremony, Old Grandma's words, refer most directly to the information that Emo killed Pinkie, but the FBI called it an accident and simply asked Emo to leave town. However, symbolically, her statement is meant to be applied to the entire book. It affirms the cyclic nature of Laguna cosmology. Although the world is seen to change, it does not progress in a straight line, but rather constantly curves back on itself, so that the new repeats and connects with the old to the point where even the terms past and present are only somewhat applicable. Throughout the novel, the poems and the prose sections share plot lines, so that they are also the same stories with different names. In this way, Silko shows that her book is also part of the cycle. Having Grandma comment explicitly on the phenomenon also underscores the Native American's self-awareness. Old Grandma's words are not the result of the confusion of old age, but of an understanding of the way the world works.

Betonie

The medicine man who guides Tayo through his ceremony. Betonie lives on the edge of the Navajo reservation, on a cliff overlooking the white town of Gallup. Feared and mistrusted by many for his eccentricities and for his contact with whites, Betonie comes from a long line of medicine men and women who struggle to create a new ceremony that will answer to the needs of the contemporary world. His wisdom is a key element in Tayo's cure.

Tayo

The protagonist of the novel. Tayo struggles with a sense of belonging in his family throughout his childhood and of belonging in his community after his return from World War II. Educated in white schools, Tayo has always maintained a belief in the Native American traditions. Painfully aware of the social realities surrounding Native American life on and off the reservation—and Native American participation in World War II—Tayo is able to make use of his double consciousness (of white and Native American life) to cure himself and his community.

The Question "Who Will Die First?"

The question "Who will die first?" frequently recurs in Jack and Babette's conversations and provides an insight into their relationship to each other and to death. The question enters both the narrative and their conversations abruptly, and it further puts the idea of death into the story. Jack and Babette don't just ask the question—they debate it, comparing their potential grief and misery. Each claims to want to die first, because the burden of living without the other would be more than either of them could bear. The irony, however, is that each is so terrified of death that they can hardly bear to live.

Sunsets

The spectacular sunsets of White Noise, beautiful in the beginning and almost overwhelmingly brilliant by the end, simultaneously suggest mystery, dread, and awe. DeLillo never elucidates whether they are the products of toxins in the environment or part of some other unnatural, or potentially natural, phenomenon. Indeed, part of their power lies in their mystery, and part of it lies in the quiet sense of fear they invoke. They are beauty and dread wrapped into one, and through the combination of the two, they become sublime. These visionary landscapes seem to perfectly mirror the fusion of life and death that lies at the heart of existence, as depicted in White Noise.

He didn't mean it. It happened before he was through. She'd stepped away from him to pick flowers, returned, and at the sound of her footsteps behind him, he'd turned around before he was through. It was becoming a habit—this concentration on things behind him. Almost as though there were no future to be had.

This passage from Chapter 2 references Milkman Dead's alienation from the world and from himself. Milkman accidentally urinates on Lena during a pit stop on a trip to Honoré Island. At a young age, Milkman has inherited Macon Jr.'s mistrustful attitude and spiritual deadness. Although he is only six years old, Milkman already acts like a world-weary man. Milkman's "concentration on things behind him" shows that he is different from other children his age, who have faith in the future. When Milkman turns "at the sound of . . . footsteps behind him," he shows how his father, who fled Pennsylvania after killing a man, has passed to his son the mentality of a hunted man. Milkman's childhood is disfigured by events that took place before his birth. Milkman's alienation is one example of Morrison's argument that a single instance of racism can harm generations of people. Ironically, Milkman's preoccupation with the past eventually allows him to bring closure to the family's suffering by discovering his family history. This passage also refers to the motif of trauma inflicted by men on women. During the drive to Honoré Island, Milkman urinates on his sister unintentionally. As Lena expresses in Chapter 9, urination becomes a metaphor for Milkman's treatment of his sisters and other women in his life. Milkman is so concerned with his own problems that he doesn't see that he is given special treatment by his family. Milkman is always supported by women behind the scenes: his sisters, Hagar, Pilate, and his mother. He fails, however, to reciprocate their generosity.

The singing woman . . . had wrapped herself up in an old quilt instead of a winter coat. Her head cocked to one side, her eyes fixed on Mr. Robert Smith, she sang in a powerful contralto.

This passage, from Chapter 1, describes Pilate's singing about Sugarman as Robert Smith prepares to fly off the roof of Mercy Hospital. In contrast to Ruth Foster, who wears expensive clothes, Pilate wears only an old quilt. Wearing the quilt shows that Pilate belongs to the community but is alienated from it. Pilate demonstrates her pride in her culture through the quilt, a traditional, homemade item in African-American households. Unlike Ruth, Pilate is proud of being a black woman and does not need to disguise herself in the clothing of the white upper-middle class. On the other hand, Pilate's outfit is different from the winter coats worn by the rest of the crowd, making her look like an outsider. Although she is visibly poor, Pilate's attitude demonstrates her strength. When Robert Smith towers over the crowd, only Pilate is brave enough to look him in the eye and respond, singing. Pilate's song describes Robert Smith's frustrated desire to escape. The song also foreshadows the novel's central conflict: flying away is liberating but hurts those who are left behind.

Milkman closed his eyes and opened them. The street was even more crowded with people, all going in the direction he was coming from. All walking hurriedly and bumping against him. After a while he realized that nobody was walking on the other side of the street.

This passage, from Chapter 3, describes Milkman wandering the streets, distraught about his parents' relationship. As Milkman begins to face dark moments from his childhood and from his family's past, he also realizes that he is completely alone in his endeavor. Even Guitar fails to salve his friend's wounds. On the same night Macon strikes his father and remembers that his mother breast-fed him through infancy, the rest of the Michigan town discusses the recent lynching of Emmett Till in Mississippi. Unlike Guitar, who takes the community's problems too seriously, Milkman is an egotist, concerned only with his own tribulations. Heading against the flow of traffic, Milkman is not a maverick, but an alien, alone in his town and unwelcomed by its residents. This scene occurs at the beginning of Milkman's journey to uncover his family's past. But from its inception, this journey is different from all other journeys, and puts Milkman at odds with the rest of humankind. It is also the beginning of the end of Milkman's childhood. At twenty-two years old, Milkman is beginning to act like a grown man, capable of handling responsibility. Of course, at this time Milkman is not yet ready for the full burdens and privileges of being an adult. Growing up comes at the end of his journey.

4. "Gold," he whispered, and immediately, like a burglar on his first job, stood up to pee. Life, safety, and luxury fanned out before him like the tailspread of a peacock, and as he stood there trying to distinguish each delicious color, he saw the dusty boots of his father standing just on the other side of the shallow pit.

This quotation, from Chapter 7, describes how Macon Jr. discovers gold treasure in a cave after killing the white man. The quotation describes a crucial turning point in Macon Jr.'s life. Before his father is murdered and before he attempts to kill the white man, Macon Jr. is a simple, kind-hearted farm boy. Macon Dead I's murder, however, ends Macon Jr.'s idyllic childhood. Gold promises a resolution to all of his recent traumas. Finding the gold in the cave is a turning point in Macon's life, after which he believes that wealth will solve his problems. Although he sees the dusty boots of his father standing on the other side of the treasure pit, Macon Jr. does not speak to him, and seems to ignore him altogether. Gold becomes more important than Macon Jr.'s love for the man he cares about most. The comparison of gold to a "tailspread of a peacock" indicates that the promise of luxury is false. The peacock's tail teases with a temporary display of beauty, and quickly disappears. Likewise, wealth does not heal Macon Jr.'s wounds. Instead, it makes them permanent. The moment that Macon Jr. discovers the gold is the moment when he begins his transformation from hard-working farm boy to soulless landlord.

The Tension Between Reality and Artifice

Throughout White Noise, the authentic and the artificial often blur together, and substance seems interchangeable with surface. This confusion between appearance and reality represents an essential part of Jack's own existence. Although Jack has created a venerable, professorial persona for himself, he remains painfully aware of the total fabrication of this character. Aided by the distinguished outfits and the weighty-sounding professional name, Jack manages to hide the fact that he lacks the ability to speak German, a seemingly basic skill for the field of Hitler studies. Jack is driven to learn the language only when an academic conference threatens to expose his lie—not in order to study his subject more deeply. Jack, in turn, is only invested in Hitler as a surface entity and seems more preoccupied with the cultural myths surrounding Hitler than in the historical facts about the man. Jack relies on Hitler's larger, more powerful persona to bolster his own fragile sense of self-worth and self-identity, capitalizing on Hitler's surface to build up his own. Jack feels inadequate because, in his mind, artifice is inherently inferior to reality. However, other moments in the novel contradict this position. When Murray and Jack visit the Most Photographed Barn in America, for example, Murray argues that the barn itself isn't intrinsically significant. Rather, the fact that countless tourists have come to visit the location gives the site meaning and value. Each time a tourist comes to admire this essentially empty and meaningless structure, he or she adds to the psychic energy surrounding the barn. The barn becomes relevant because many people have invested in the image of the barn. In Murray's opinion, no genuine difference between surface and substance exists. At the same time, DeLillo satirizes postmodern human beings' inability to discern the genuine from the fabricated. The SIMUVAC, or Simulated Evacuation, is perhaps the most extreme example of the tension between what is real and what is artificial. For SIMUVAC, real events, such as the airborne toxic event—which was itself caused by a derivative of an original chemical—are used to prepare for later simulations, and later simulations are used to prepare for other simulations. In this environment, where technology allows for endless duplication, it becomes increasingly difficult to ascertain where reality ends and replication begins.

The Constant Threat of Drought

Water is essential to the survival of crops and animals for the Laguna, whose primary occupation is agriculture. Without city-sponsored plumbing and irrigation systems, and not wanting to interrupt the natural flow of water with dams, the Laguna are completely dependent on natural rainfall. Living in the desert land that comprises much of the southwest of the United States, the Laguna are constantly threatened by drought. Many of the traditional stories and ceremonies revolve around ensuring adequate rainfall. The primary signal of the spirits' displeasure with something the people has done is a drought, and one of the greatest feats of a destructive spirit is the creation of a drought. However, as Josiah tells Tayo when he is a child, everything has both its good and its bad sides. While too little rainfall can be disastrous, so can too much, as Tayo learns in the Philippine jungle. Tayo commits a grievous error when he forgets this lesson and, in the midst of a flood, curses the rain. Whether or not Tayo's curse is actually responsible for the drought on the reservation, it is essential for his health as well as for that of his community that he learn through his ceremony to respect the patterns of nature. Once he does that, the rain returns.

Helen Foster Stone

Years before the novel's action, Helen flees Fingerbone with Reginald Stone, and Sylvia never accepts her daughter's Nevada wedding as legitimate. After almost eight years away, Helen suddenly returns from Seattle and leaves her daughters, Ruthie and Lucille, on Sylvia's porch before driving herself off a cliff and into the same lake that claimed her father's life.