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This test consists of 5 short answer questions, 10 short essay questions, and 1 (of 3) essay topics.

Short Answer Questions

1. Why does Josiah’s mistress leave the village?

2. What does Tayo eat as he is walking back to Ts’eh’s house?

3. What does the medicine man tell Tayo about who the medicine man’s grandmother was?

4. Where do the holy men look when they want to know the time to dance for rain?

5. What does the medicine man say the white doctors do with the dead in the mental hospitals?

Short Essay Questions

1. How does Josiah’s sister feel about Night Swan?

2. What does Betonie show Tayo about his illness and how it is related to white people?

3. What does the woman tell Tayo when she sees him again and what is his response?

4. Who is hired as a shepherd after Harley and how does that go?

5. What does Josiah tell Tayo about the spring and how does Tayo feel about the story?

6. What kind of Indian is Tayo and what are his earliest memories of his mother?

7. What is the difference between Tayo’s life as a soldier and his life as a civilian on a reservation?

8. How does Rocky end up dead?

9. What does Tayo tell Ku'oosh about the war and about the drought?

10. How does a woman help Tayo find the cattle?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

One of the themes of the story is that white people are alien, they are not superior, as is commonly thought, and do not dictate cultural morés to the Native Americans.

Discuss the reasons the Indians might have viewed white people as alien or strange and how some of that viewpoint changed during the course of Ceremony. Use examples from Ceremony to support your response.

Essay Topic 2

This writer, a Native American herself, is communicating a way her own people can adapt to the changes that have taken place and are taking place in their own world while hanging on to their own identity at the same time.

Discuss at least three ways which Silko advocates can help her people adapt to the changes in their culture while continuing to hold onto their own cultural identity. Use examples from Ceremony to support your response.

Essay Topic 3

There are many elements of effective psychotherapy in the counseling that Tayo receives from both Ku'oosh and Betonie. They guide him gently through a recounting, re-examination and recasting of all the demons that possess him.

Discuss reasons Tayo talking about his experiences might help him come to terms with what he has been through. Include a discussion of what the above statement might mean by “Tayo’s demons.” Use examples from Ceremony to support your response.

(see the answer keys)

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