Tayo was born an illegitimate, half-breed Native American. Later in his life, he would understand "what it was about white men and Indian women; the disgrace of Indian woman that went with them" (57). At a very young age, Tayo's mother sent him to live with her sister and her family on the Laguna Pueblo reservation. Soon after he moved in, Tayo's mother died. Tayo grew up on the reservation and lived with Auntie, her husband, Robert, and their young son, Rocky. Tayo's grandmother and his other uncle, Josiah, lived on the reservation also.

Although Auntie raised Tayo, she made it well known that he was not her real son; Rocky was her pride and joy. As Silko explains, "When she was alone with the boys, she kept Rocky close to her . . . She was careful that Rocky did not share . . . things with Tayo, that they kept a distance between themselves and him. She wanted [Tayo] close enough to feel excluded, to be aware of the distance between them. The two little boys accepted the distance, but Roc

Some of them did want to escape the reservation and get into the main stream, but they failed. Toyo's mother, Rocky, and Auntie, etc.. Among them Rocky may be the one who represented that kind of effort. He was an A-student and all-state in football and track. He obeyed his teachers and he listened to the coach. He denied the myth as mere superstition, and accepted scientific knowledge through the books he read. He always wanted to get away from the reservation and he wanted to make something of himself. So when Army recruiter came, he enrolled himself because he wanted to set himself as true American. However, he died during the war. That must have been the destiny of the one who wanted to melt into the main stream where he did not and could not belong to. Through Rocky, Silko might have wanted to show how impossible or hard for Indian to melt into the White society.

Some topics in this essay:
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