The Atomic Bomb Symbol Analysis

As Ceremony focuses on a WWII veteran, the threat of atomic warfare looms large over the novel. Silko ties the atomic bomb to “white culture,” and sees the bomb as a kind of logical and yet horrifying outcome of what she sees as white culture’s focus on domination and destruction instead of balance or harmony. Tayo does not understand why the white men would create a weapon that shows so little regard for human life, or any life at all. The atomic bomb, and the new form of warfare that it represents, is such a horrible threat that all of the old Pueblo ceremonies meant to heal warriors who have taken lives on the battlefield cannot balance out death on such a large, impersonal scale. According to the novel, the atomic bomb is the worst extreme of the white culture that seeks victory at whatever cost to the environment and other people. While the atomic bomb might have allowed the Americans to win what the medicine man Betonie calls “the white man’s war,” atomic weapons also carry the potential to annihilate all of humankind. As such, the atomic bomb is the only thing that can force all the warring clans of humanity to be “united by the fate the destroyers planned for all of them.”

Tayo’s final confrontation with Emo takes place in an abandoned uranium mine on the Trinity test site where the American government secretly gathered uranium before the war. The mine further underscores how the atomic bomb represents an unsustainable attitude towards natural resources. Regardless of the damage the bomb will do when it is deployed against America’s enemies, making the bomb at all has devastating effects on the New Mexico test site. Meeting Emo in the mine represents the choice that Tayo must make between remaining a tool of the witchery that wants to destroy the world or, instead, working towards the life affirming philosophy of his Pueblo heritage. If Tayo had killed Emo on the land that was stripped to create the atomic bomb, he would have furthered the agenda of evil in the world. Refusing to indulge in vengeance and violence in this place is a powerful statement of respect for life and the earth. While Tayo’s choice certainly does not nullify the damage that the atomic bomb could still do, his choice to seek peace above all else is a forceful blow against the ideals of superiority and subjection that the bomb represents.