*aNa*

In the book Ceremony the idea of stories comes up often. One way that this idea is expressed is in the story about the hummingbird and fly that is interesting woven into the book. This story seems to parrallel the storyline of Tayo and the other characters. At times things that happen during Tayo’s ceremony can compare to something that happens in the story. For example at one point in the ceremony when Tayo finds the girl that helps him get the herbs it is just like in the story when they go to get tobacco from caterpillar. This parallel of the stories seemed to keep a very mysterious interest in the reader.
Also, with this culture stories played a big role. This was the peoples way of communicating ideas, rituals, and even little lessons. At the beginning of the novel it is even mentioned that stories are everything the people had. They wer not just used for entertainment but for every part of life. When a story is passed there is no way of being destroyed. In the end it just comes to the pure fact that stories are how and what the people of Laguna culture lived by, and in the book Ceremony, the author really tries to emphasize this idea in all these different ways.

Clothing styles, music, and trends are constantly changing over time. Another thing that changes that many people don’t think about or even realize is language. Think of trying to read a shakespere play. Most likely its going to be challenging and need to be analyzed before comprehending, but in the time he wrote the plays that was the normal language people spoke. Language seems to always be changing and for someone not from this time it may be difficult to read. Due to the difficulty of the reading someone may not appreciate the piece of work as much. Sometimes language puts a barrier on the ability to understand or even enjoy reading literature. Not only if the language is of a different time period but sometimes this barrier is also present when the language is too sophisticated for the reader. Struggling to understand what is written while reading, can be very frusterating. This most of the time causes the reader to miss the purpose or entertainment of what he/she is reading, causing the reading to be useless. The language of a piece of literature is very important and plays a big role in the experience of a reading.

Snow White, Sleeping Beauty, Cinderella, and The Little Mermaid. Almost everyone of us has heard , read, or been told these stories at least once in their childhood. What did we think about these stories when we were younger? Usually nothing more than Walt Disney’s versions of these fairy tales, a story for children to read enjoy and maybe even envy. In most cases these stories also had a lesson to be learned, but isn’t that how lots of things are when we are younger? In the cute little story ways we try to sugar coat situations that children need to be aware of. The situation is there and the children see what happens if someone does the wrong thing, but it is all in a happy ending children’s story book kind of way.
Stepping away from Walt Disney there are these fairy tales out there that aren’t written in this storybook kind of way. They have harsher punishments, more graphics, and less of the princess, “candy coated” elements. Lots of people say they would never read these stories to their children. But why? Yes they might be a little more scary but not enough to scare a child. In some of the other versions the lesson is so “candy coated” that the children don’t even pick it up. So what is the fairy tale used for then? Just a story for entertainment? Or is the parent still trying to get the moral through to their child?
Today this kind of fairy tale could never be read in a public school without causing a riot among parents and the public. Society today seems to try to blind children from most of the dangers and lessons that they should be learning everyday. But is that really working? Children used to get hit in school if they did something wrong, and their parents would even read them stories that had harsh punishments to get the point across. Look at what is going on in the world today with our children. They are getting into bad stuff at such a younger and younger age. So did these stories with harsher lessons actually get the message across to the children? If this is the case maybe we should go back to reading these types of fairy tales.

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