The killer inside me by Jim Thompson and Ceremony by leslie marmon silko - Essay Example

Order 536815 Topic: The Killer Inside me by Jim Thompson and Ceremony by Leslie Marmon Silko In the first few pages of the novel, Jim Thomson unravels the working of the mind of Lou Ford, the Deputy Sheriff of a small town in Texas. Being such an important functionary, he doesn’t carry the private weapon for his personal security. When questioned about it by the bar maid, his reply is philosophical. Jim Thomson (1991, p.3) writes, “We don’t have many crooks here in Central City, ma’am,” I said.

“Anyway, people are people, even when they’re a little misguided. You don’t hurt them, they won’t hurt you. They’ll listen to reason.” Persons in authority need to think what they are doing to help the people? For what they will be remembered for! Are they making a difference by making others live better, richer, and happier? Lou Ford must be thinking on similar lines. He must have done his bit to reform a boy by tendering him proper counseling and yet he accepts the compliments with utter humility.

When the boy’s father tells him, “And always he talks about you—what a good man is Deputy Lou Ford,” he replies, “I didn’t do anything,” I said. “Just talked to him. Showed him a little interest. Anyone else could have done as much.”(p.4)Normally the suffering (or guilt) that one undergoes leaves an impact on the disposition of the man and his dealing with the people with whom he interacts. Though the people considered Lou a bit slow, it was on account of his sickness when he was younger and many people did not know about it.

Lou is a sociopath and he is aware of it. Therefore his conversations are a bit philosophical. He is desperately trying to hide his “sickness” that he carries since his childhood, now threatening to resurface. So, the above conversations need to be understood in the context that Lou is a psychopath, and he is trying to wear the mask of simplicity on his real face. He has a dark secret, perhaps an unexplained death, but the people around him think that he is a good individual. He seems to be a man in conflict, waiting to explode.

At the same time he is trying to grasp his own identity. Is he gentle? Rather he is acting to be gentle. The reckless homicidal maniac lurks under him threatening to surface at the most unsuspected moment. The conflict of this personality is mainly internal. As for the character Tayo as depicted by Leslie Marmon Silko, in “Ceremony,” the conflict is also internal like Lou Ford, but with a difference. It has a social and racial bearing. “White thievery and injustice boiling up the anger and hatred that would finally destroy the world: the starving against the fat, the colored against the white."(p.191) His physical body is the mixture of Native American and White cultures.

The combination of the ‘inferior’ and the ‘superior’ as understood in common parlance in America! His upbringing was a great tragedy-- he never knew who his father was and the mother had abandoned him when he was four. While encountering such a grim experience, anyone would become cynical. He was drafted for the war (World War II) and that experience of mindless killing left him a frustrated man. The mistreatment by whites affected his psyche deeply. He now decides to work for a cause for the humanity and finds his equation with the medicine men Ku'oosh and Betonie offer and comes to rely on the old traditions to cure his mental anguish as well as permanent cure for his people from the inferiority complex with which they suffer.

One superstitious belief leads to the other and fails to take him anywhere near peace, which he hankers after desperately? In fine, both the books relate to the personal traumas, though for different reasons. Lou Ford’s case is that of a psychopath. Tayo suffers from great social injustice that has a strong racial bias, and the bitter World War II experience turns him directionless and destination less. About the mental condition of Tayo, Silko (1986,p.11)writes, “The jungle breathed an eternal green that fevered men until they dripped sweat the way rubbery jungle leaves dripped the monsoon rain.

It was there that Tayo began to understand what Josiah had said. Nothing was all good or all bad either; it all depended.” He comes to the conclusion that there is no just hating a section of the society permanently. If there is no perfect discipline and justice in this world, carry on with the available discipline and justice. Works Cited Silko, Leslie Marmon; Ceremony (Contemporary American Fiction Series); Penguin (Non- Classics), March 4, 1986. Thomson, Jim; The Killer Inside Me; Vintage; 1st edition, March 13, 1991.