The Native American's Representation of the Body in Leslie Silko's Ceremony

Kilanko Adièle ZANNOU

Volume 16 – Septembre 2021 : Le corps dans les productions artistiques et culturelles : entre esthétique et signification (2021) Page(s) 71 - 87 ISSN 2076-6130

What is a beautiful woman or a handsome man for you? The canon of beauty is not the same for everybody because people come from different social, ethnic and social background. Most of the time our culture influences our aesthetic canons or criteria. About beauty, the Cambridge dictionary gives this definition: “The quality of being pleasant, especially to watch, or someone or something that gives a lot of pleasure, especially when looking at it” (Cambridge University Dictionary, 2021, online). It stands out from this definition that each one has his own representation of a beautiful body because what looks “pleasant, especially to watch” for someone may look ugly for someone else. The appreciation of beauty is then subjective and related to the canon of beauty that each one has internalized. The complexion, the hair, the skin, the shape, the dress, the makeup, etc. are all parts of the canon of beauty. In this respect, what can be said about Native Americans? What representation of the body did they have before colonization? Have their representation of body experienced a change? What does Leslie Marmon Silko think about it? In 1948 Leslie Marmon Silko was born in Albuquerque, New Mexico, of Pueblo, Laguna, Mexican, and white descent. She is then a Native American. Leslie Marmon Silko published her first novel, Ceremony in 1977. It explains how vital storytelling is to the Pueblo culture and how White culture has made many attempts to destroy these stories as well as their ce

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Kilanko Adièle ZANNOU. « The Native American's Representation of the Body in Leslie Silko's Ceremony ». Revue Ivoirienne de Langues Étrangères, Numéro 16, 2021, p. 71. ISSN 2076-6130.