Searching For Harmony By works of Toni Morrison’s Sula and Leslie Marmon Silko’s Ceremony.

Leslie Marmon Silko’s Ceremony and Toni Morrison’s Sula are the books devoted to the everlasting challenge of survival. Through the war conflicts between different cultures and within the community, the authors reveal complex and contradictory nature of life. Morrison in her novel shows cultural conflict of African-American community with the Whites, while Silco in Ceremony  presents struggle of Native Americans on the Mexican border with influences of different cultures. For both authors the crucial issue appears the same – in order to survive, nationality has  not to lose its historical identity, accept changes and live in harmony with representatives of other cultural groups.
  Not only war conflict between cultures but within, among people is presented in the works of Toni Morrison and Leslie Silko. By opposing values of the society to the world outlook of the specific individual, the vital questions are raised, such as: What makes someone a personality? If society is composed of individuals, why does societal values confront to the ones of a particular man? How to find the way to the balance and, thus, survival between a person and community?
Both authors, Morrison and Silko present the answer to the question of the survival in the war conflict between culture and within as  acceptance of your own personality and balance of it with the community one lives in. On the one hand, in order to survive community should preserve its historical and cultural roots. On the other hand, being a part of a community, a person should maintain his/her own identity but conform to the society. 
A topic of figurative war, a war resulted from the difference in community’s perception appears in both books. As the protagonist of Toni Morrison Sula, Tayo the main character of the Ceremony is also not accepted by the society he lives in. Through the analysis of national history of the people, the authors show the background for foundation of the community values. Those who do not fit into the established criteria, become the outcasts in their own society.
Tayo, the protagonist in Leslie Marmon Silko’s Ceremony, is a man who was born in the Indian reservation Laguna Pueblo. His mother conceived him with the white man, and when Tayo reached the age of four, left her child. He was raised by the family of his aunt Auntie, her husband Robert, their child Rocky and his uncle Josiah.  The events of the book are developed on the background of Tayo’s arrival from the World War II. His personal post-traumatic stress coincide with the rejection of the Indian community to acknowledge him. Horrors of the war follows him in drastic reminiscences of the events in the forests of the Philippines. Coming home, he supposed to meet understanding and help but because of his half breed roots the Indian community treated him as an outsider.
On the one hand, no societal acceptance - Tayo’s aunt Auntie fanatically preserved “the letter” of Indian traditions and treated Tayo as a matter of shame for the community: “the signs of the cultural mixing in his green eyes often makes Tayo bear the brunt of a whole society’s confusion” (Silko, Leslie Marmon). On the other hand, Tayo’s friends and compatriots Indian veterans of the World War II did not understand him, too. They brought different perception from the war. For them, being a soldiers among whites meant a period of belonging to the superior white culture. In the uniforms they get respect and privilege to be treated as equals. Suppressed by misunderstanding of his family, friends and community, he suffered a lot.
The main character of Toni Morrison Sula also confronts with rejection of her by the society. According to the critic of Basu and Biman by combining “historical… grotesque body of the black community” with the “oral word of black speech”, the author creates unique style that helps best reproduce the atmosphere of the book. With such techniques, Morrison approaches  her protagonist Sula. She was raised in the family of her grandmother Eva and mom Hannah. Both women were too eccentric, lonely and independent to bring up completely “outlawed, unpolicing and uncontained” girl (Toni Morrison, Unspeakable Things Unspoken) . The African-American society treated Sula’s relatives as loose because they did not correspond to their values ( no husbands, no proper moral conduct of behavior), but Sula was rejected at all. Her extraordinary behavior deprived of any understanding of the morality evoked, at first, disapproval and, finally, hatred. She was considered to be total evil, and suspected of the abnormal witch’s power. 
The only friend of Sula was Nel. As some critics say, both of them form the one protagonist of the book. Completely different, they, at the same time, can not be separated, forming the two sides of the one whole. Nel received traditional woman upbringing with the correspondence to the social and cultural framework of the African-American community. She met a boy Jude, and they married. He wanted to have real “man’s job” and with no other possibility to get self-realization, decided to find a wife. Nel built a traditional “household bound by the social standards that define the conventional meaning of the “family””(Toni Morrison).
How different were the girls can be discovered from the scene on the river. The accidental death of the boy from the neighborhood  Little Chicken  who slipped out of Sula’s hands evoked different reaction of  two friends. Sula became distraught but felt no guilt. On contrary, Nel was calm but felt guilt for the death of a boy, partially, because of her traditional moralistic upbringing and inner understanding that they might did something that society would disapprove.
The girls were separated for ten years during which Sula attended college and traveled through the country. Returning to the Bottom, Sula lives a life of a fierce independence and total disregard for social conventions. The author of the book, Toni Morrison, gave insights as for Sula’s personality, “she had no center, no speck around which to grow”, thus, ”no ego”. Such absence of a structure, foundation led to the decision “to be consistent only with herself” (Sula, 118-119). That in its turn appeared to result in selfishness, indulgence of sexual desires and total absence of respect towards everything that does not concern her.
As Sula was rejected by the society, the only person who connected her to the community was Nel. At the same time, Sula was Nel’s connection to herself, ”Nel…does not know about herself. Even at the end she does not know”. Without Nell, Sula becomes completely alienated from the world, “she has trouble making a connection with other people”, and Nel loses her individuality without Sula. Thus, it becomes obvious that “Sula and Nel complement each other, yet their characters are fundamentally, finally discrete” (New world Woman. Galehouse, Maggie).
The topic of the survival of other characters in Sula can be proceeded by the colorful personality of Sula’s grandmother. When her husband BoyBoy left her with three children, the struggle for survival forced her to leave “the Bottom in search for self-fulfillment and financial security”. Eva returns “with two crutches, a new pocketbook and one leg” (Toni Morrison, Sula). Despite of being physically crippled, she had a strength to build a new house, take her children back home and, even, provide a shelter for others( friends, boarders and strays). Receiving money from the renting room service, she has got a possibility to become a “provider for the family” (De Angelis, Rose, Morrison’s Sula).
Eva’s strong desire to survive cost her a leg, but in response she obtained financial prosperity and control over her life. Furthermore, according to Grant, she became a storyteller, a mythic character, a heroine, “who transformed tragedy into political power”. She could prove that in the world of male dominance there is a place for a strong woman. “Suggesting that the black woman can write her own story” (Joan Jacobs Brumberg), Eva tells and retells her own history and meets respect of the community. Moreover, being crippled, she presented herself in the role of sexual object. Rejecting the traditional idea for female and male evaluation of the body by its beauty, she also gain success in intimate life, ”had a regular flock of gentlemen callers” (Toni Morrison, Sula).
As for the society, the author of Sula presented a double-edged nature of things while describing the confrontation of the main character with the community. Society labeled Sula as evil, partially, for the reason that her independent behavior, rejection of marriage and commitment to community was similar to the freedom of the white women world. Tension among society, which Sula produced, led to societal unification in its war with the enemy. According to Spivak, she appeared to be the “antipode to themselves”, and people tried to become better. 
It is the irony of the situation, but the presence of Sula in the Bottom really improves the lives of its inhabitants. Mothers, like Teapot’s, who previously neglected their children, began to defend and vigorously nurse them. Wives in their hatred of Sula and fear to loose their husbands because of her natural sexuality, became more attentive and affectionate to their spouses. Thus, Sula “enforces the very roles they accused her of abusing: mother and lover”(New world Woman. Galehouse, Maggie).
   Survival of the community is a vital topic in Toni Morrison’s book not only because of the war within society Sula produced, but, also, because of the conflict with the White male world people must live in. In order to find a better job to provide financial security for their families, the men of the Bottom work odd jobs for little money. The Bottom’s women who tried to find a job in the white cities ended her efforts on prostitution, the only work a black woman could find there.
In this energetic struggle of the African-American community to survive, no one really understands and appreciates the role of Sula in their lives. After her death, people of the Bottom found themselves in frustration because “they are left without a direct, evil force with which to contend” (New world Woman. Galehouse, Maggie). With no enemy to fight with to become better, the unification of the community fell apart, and everything returned on its rails.
    Like Toni Morrison in Sula, so Leslie Marmon Silko in her Ceremony preserved national traditions of Native Americans and presented a book in the form of ancient storytelling with poetic elements and no order in time. The book by its structure itself looks like a ceremony: poems begins and ends each part with the prosaic text being in the middle, thematically connected to each other.
On the way of the main character of Ceremony Tayo towards survival two women appeared as a help. The first one is Night Swain, who is mixed blood, also. Her green eyes are the evidence of her Mexican roots. Uncle Josiah fell in love with Night Swain and visited her every night. Once, Josiah asked Tayo to deliver a massage to his girlfriend. Night Swain invited Tayo upstairs, and seduced him. As women in the story play a significant role, their wisdom appeared to help the main character to complete the ritual. So, according to the critic of James Mayo, with support of Night Twain, Tayo realizes “that mixed-blood heritage is not something of which he should be ashamed” and “those who are afraid of change are fools”. Thus, the first wise advice lies in acceptance of self through understanding that changes have already come.
The other agent of the medicine man Betonie woman Ts’eh becomes Tayo’s spiritual guide and healer. She helped Tayo to complete the ceremony through returning Josiah’s cattle, and warned about a meeting with the white men. After the completion of the last step, “mining scene”, of the ceremony, the final purification took place. Healing function of Ts’eh, also, lay in love. Spending summer together, she gave him strength to recover, to find harmony with himself and traditions of the Indian community, and then disappeared from his life.
War within the community of Indian society is presented by aunt Auntie rejection of Tayo’s white roots. She was against his mother relationships with white man, and treated them as shameful. Her doubled consciousness reveals itself in her attitude towards her son Rocky. Auntie wished her son to gain a success in integration into the white society.  He visited white school and was one of the most honored students. As a result, Rocky’s attitude toward Native American traditions was skeptical: he did not believe in the old rituals of the Indian tribe, and looked forward white values. Thus, while pursuing “a letter” of traditions, Auntie in her son Rocky uncovered her real intentions – to be a part of White Society.
Tayo has a feeling of guilt. During the whole life his aunt Auntie tried to highlight his difference from the others. She did not say anything, but with all her movements she demonstrated her attitude toward Tayo’s half breed roots. For that reason, according to James Mayo, Tayo conceived a feeling of guilt as he appeared to be “a source of shame for Auntie“. Tayo’s survivors guilt is multiplied as he thought he was responsible for the cousin and uncle death, drought ( he made a ritual in Philippines to stop the rain) and community rejection ( felt ashamed that his mother went with white men).
Returning to Toni Morrison’s Sula, the important aspect of war upon culture must be mentioned in order the understanding of the book to be complete. Eva and Hannah are African-American women, who in the1920’s had little opportunities for survival and self-realization. The discrimination at that time was tough not only for the matter of race but for sex, also. Eva’s  struggle with the life obstacles and attitude of the community to her as being a “loose” ended with success and acceptance.
 Unlike Sula, Eva appreciated traditional values – respect to community and a role of a woman as a wife and mother. As Hannah, she was abandoned by her husband and gave up community values not by her decision. Eva recommended her granddaughter to “settle”, “have some babies” and a family. When Sula reminded her grandmother that nor she, nor her own mother had that, Eva answered, “Not by choice. Not by choice, I said” (Sula, 92).
The other example of war upon culture is Jude’s story. In the age of twenty years old, Jude Green worked as a waiter at the Hotel Medallion. Not satisfied with his job, he searched for the man’s one. Getting information about a “plan to build a new road to the river”, he hoped to participate in selection and get a work in the project. Jude stands in line for six days in order to see if he got the position of building a bridge. To his great disappointment, he got a refusal and found out that “only whites are being hired” (Toni Morrison). Jude’s ego is hurt when he is not picked for building the new bridge because of his color of skin. 
Marriage with Nel was the way out for Jude to save his self-respect as a man. He completed a high school and “married in an elaborate ceremony”. For him Nel is the acceptance of his manhood, for Nel – a realization of the “conventional beliefs of her mother” (Toni Morrison). Accident with Chicken Little confused her because she understood that they (Sula and Nel) did something wrong, and, thus, someone must bear responsibility for that. As a result, a marriage for Nel is the way to embody community expectation and, at the same time, to avoid bothering feeling of guilt and responsibility, “she gladly accepts the role of a submissive wife”(Toni Morrison).
Leslie Marmon Silco also presented a theme of war upon culture. In her book Ceremony, the main character of the book Tayo must find a harmony through learning to make use of the white parts of himself and the world around him while preserving Native American traditions. Tayo could not get rid of the war memories: death of Rocky, Josiah face among a crowd of soldiers, killing of Japanese who looked so alike Indian people. His personal illness is strengthened by the rejection by either culture because of half breed origins.
Tayo’s aunt Auntie made sure he realizes he will always looked down as an outsider. Being a representative of the blind following of the  traditions of Indian tribes, she mistrusted interracial relationships. Her attitude is well seen in her disapproval of Tayo’s mother and uncle Josiah who dared to break down the rules, and bound their lives with representatives of other race.
In order to heal Tayo’ decease, he must enter into certain rituals to cure personal illness. According to Susan Goldstein, the first part of the ceremony was directed to treatment of his “post-traumatic stress disorder”. Medicine man Betonie, lead the first part of the ritual “to break down the webs of meaning (the past) so that recovery through reconstruction can take place” (Mayo, James). The next step in the ceremony dealt with building the integration with the society in order to understand that he is “contributing member of his community” (Goldstein). As the result of the ceremony, Tayo finally reconnected with his past, his “identification revitalizes him”.
The vital part of the purification ceremony is the sacrifice of Harley that Tayo witnessed. According to Goldstein, the death of his friend made Tayo understand that “Harley made his own choice” and that he is not responsible for it. Tayo perceived that “the death of two people cannot influence the prosperity of the entire tribe” (Goldstein). His feeling of guilt for the deaths of his uncle Josiah and Rocky was removed as he “embraced the natural order of life and proceed with his purification rituals”. At last, Tayo experienced “physical and spiritual harmony” (Goldstein). The ceremony is completed by understanding that he is not alone, but a member of the tribe with a long history of traditions and rituals.  
Toni Morrison and Leslie Marmon Silko, also, put the meaning behind the book structure. In Ceremony, the communicating structure and meaning are revealed through traditional story about Thought-Woman who “is able to create things as she names them”.  According to James Mayo, as reality is created through words and knowledge that form the web, to reconstruct his own life Tayo needed to deconstruct the existing reality “to make a meaning …and understand that he is a part of something that “”has been going on for a very long time””(universe, life, history).
Toni Morrison put the meaning behind the book by using the black voice in fiction. It means subtle usage of oral and textile experience, “that manipulates and redistributes the sensory configuration in the literary experience” (Basu, Biman). The idea of blackness of the book lies in usage of a black language. To elucidate it better, Toni Morrison uses the analogy of music as the way to understand the “metaphysics of race”. The other point is Sula’s blackness and femaleness. The author claims that Sula is a child of modernity. She is “new world black and new world woman”( Toni Morrison, Unspeakable Things Unspoken) because of two things – double-black that means black by nature and color of skin (birthmark above her eye), and “dangerous female” - sexually free, improvisational, imaginative (analogy: music of Jazz Age).
Toni Morrison build her novel with the meaning of the proverb. Finally, her protagonist Sula dies, while the other half of the one Nel stays alive. In such a way Morrison claims that Sula had no potential for development and, thus, disappeared from the story. Nel at the end of the book understood that “it was Sula not Jude she really missed” (De Angelis, Rose). It means that not only traditions and conventional community are important but knowing your self and balance of both matters.
In conclusion, it is important to pinpoint that both authors see the result of a war conflict between culture and within it only through acceptance of your own personality and balance of it with the community one lives in. Society, in its turn, in order to survive, has to preserve its historical and national identity, accept changes and live in a harmony with different cultural groups. For a particular person – to understand his identity but, at the same time, conformity to society. Reality is the dance between good and evil, in order not to fall one should accept both.

Bibliography
1.	Basu, Biman. The Black Voice and the language of the text: Toni Morrison’s Sula. College literature. Hayward, Oct.1996.
2.	De Angelis, Rose. Morrison’s Sula. The Explicator. Hayward, Spring 2002.
3.	Goldstein, Susan Golemen. Native American spirituality in Leslie Marmon Silco’s work.  The Explicator. Hayward, Summer 2003.
4.	Mayo, James. Silko’s ceremony. The Explicator. Hayward, Fall 2001.
5.	Morrison, Toni. Sula. New York: Knopf,1973.
6.	Silko, M. Leslie. Ceremony. New York: The Vikings Press,1977. 
7.	Brumberg, Joan Jacobs. The Body Project. New York: Vintage,1997.
8.	Grant, Robert. Absence into Presence: The Thematics of Memory and Missing. New York: Plume,1996.
9.	Galehouse, Maggie. “New World Woman”: Toni Morrison’s Sula. New York: Pergamon, 1995.
10.	 Spivak, Gayatri Chakravorty. Feminism and Critical Theory. In Other Worlds-Essays in Cultural Politics. New York: Methuen, 1987.77-92.