Ceremony: Metaphors 4 key examples

In Section 1, Tayo mourns the loss of Josiah, whose home on the reservation he now resides in. More than anything, Tayo wishes Josiah were there to listen—to hear his grievances and comfort him in the midst of his trauma recovery, no matter how difficult. Whilst ruminating on this prospect, Tayo imagines what he might say to Josiah, including the following metaphor:

He wished Josiah were there, not forever like he had been wishing, but just long enough so Tayo could tell him how he’d been feeling lately, how he’d almost been convinced he was brittle red clay, slipping away with the wind, a little more each day.

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In the following excerpt from Section 1, Silko utilizes metaphor to describe Tayo's initial thoughts, impressions, and emotions after he wakes up in the VA hospital:

The new doctor asked him if he had ever been visible, and Tayo spoke to him softly and said that he was sorry but nobody was allowed to speak to an invisible one. But the new doctor persisted; he came each day, and his questions dissolved the edges of the fog, and his voice sounded louder every time he came. The sun was dissolving the fog, and one day Tayo heard a voice answering the doctor. The voice was saying, “He can’t talk to you. He is invisible. His words are formed with an invisible tongue, they have no sound.”

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In the following excerpt from Section 1, Tayo reflects on the circumstances of his return from war, mourning the loss of Rocky. Silko employs a metaphor to illustrate Tayo's process in dealing with his grief:

It didn’t take Tayo long to see the accident of time and space: Rocky was the one who was alive, buying Grandma her heater with the round dial on the front; Rocky was there in the college game scores on the sports page of the Albuquerque Journal. It was him, Tayo, who had died, but somehow there had been a mistake with the corpses, and somehow his was still unburied.

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In the following excerpt from Section 2, Tayo reflects on the role that alcohol plays in his own life and in the lives of other veterans. The narrative employs a metaphor in this passage, comparing liquor to medicine:

He had heard Auntie talk about the veterans—drunk all the time, she said. But he knew why. It was something the old people could not understand. Liquor was medicine for the anger that made them hurt, for the pain of the loss, medicine for tight bellies and choked-up throats. He was beginning to feel a comfortable place inside himself, close to his own beating heart, near his own warm belly; he crawled inside and watched the storm swirling on the outside and he was safe there; the winds of rage could not touch him.

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