Exploring The "Third Space":Tayo’s Healing Journey And The Reconstruction Of Contemporary American Indian Culture In Ceremony

Ceremony is one of the masterpieces of American Indian woman writer Leslie Marmon Silko, and is regarded as a classical work of American indigenous literature on account of its profound theme and rich connotations. It tells a story about the healing journey of a young Indian man, Tayo, who suffers from the so-called "battle fatigue" brought on by fighting in World War Ⅱ. During the course of the story he fully recovers with the help of American indigenous cultural traditions and the change of traditional ceremony. A healing story as it seems to be, this novel can actually be read as a work mediating on the predicament and way-out of contemporary American Indian culture.This thesis is a close study of the author’s concern for indigenous culture as reflected in her novel Ceremony. Through analyzing the relationship between the protagonist’s individual dilemma and the American Indian cultural predicament, this thesis argues that this novel symbolically presents the suffering American Indian culture has endured and the recovery it must find in today’s multicultural environment. The protagonist Tayo’s traumatic state mirrors the problematic condition of indigenous cultural tradition, while his healing journey indicates Silko’s thinking about the future of American Indian culture.From the perspective of hybridity theory and the Third Space theory put forward by postcolonial critic Homi K. Bhabha, this thesis explores the author’s meditation on the survival of traditional American Indian culture in the present multicultural world. Tayo’s recovery with the help of indigenous cultural elements and the change of traditional ceremony symbolically represents the author’s expectation on the future of American Indian culture. Focusing on the reconstruction of indigenous cultural tradition, this thesis foregrounds the importance of cultural hybridity. It points out that inheriting ancient cultural heritage is essential for American Indians, but it is even more necessary for them to recognize the changes brought about by contact with the colonial white culture, and learn to adjust their ancient cultural heritage to fit the present multicultural world. The survival and development of contemporary American Indian culture lie in pursuing a third space based on the cultural hybridity of indigenous and Western cultures. The Third Space serves as a metaphorical space where the binary opposition between cultures can be destroyed and cultural hybridity can be achieved. This thesis ends with the conclusion that in the novel Ceremony, cultural hybridity and the Third Space are considered as important avenues to the reconstruction of contemporary American Indian culture in the context of post-colonialism.This thesis illuminates that while maintaining their own cultural traditions, ethnic cultures should pay attention to cultural communication and take in some compatible cultural elements from other cultures so as to articulate their voices in a multicultural era.