In his discussion on the advent of hypertext, “Reconfiguring Narrative,” George P. Landow cites Aristotle’s classic work Poetics, where “Aristotle offers a definition of plot in which fixed sequence plays a central role” (181). Landow makes it understood that according to Aristotle, a plot must follow a rigid form of beginning, middle, and end. He then contrasts Aristotle against hypertext by stating, “Hypertext therefore calls into question (1) fixed sequence, (2) definite beginning and ending, (3) a story’s “certain definite magnitude,” and (4) the conception of unity or wholeness associated with all these other concepts” (181). While hypertext certainly does call into question all those points which Landow lays out, there are works of fiction pre-dating hypertext which display qualities of hypertextuality that stand as a sort of precursor of the conscious delineation of the narrative structure.
   
Leslie Marmon Silko’s Ceremony subverts the rigid structure of the linear narrative by interweaving different stories to patch together her narrative, taking a non-sequential approach to both time and events. The two main narratives that are woven together to form the story are Silko’s narrative of the character Tayo’s existence after coming back from World War Two, and a series of traditional Laguna Native American chants. Also, the storyline of Tayo contains a great deal of flashbacks that narrate events both from Tayo’s war experiences and from events that happened long before Tayo went to war. Instead of clearly separating the different segments, Silko places them together, often jumping around through time and narrative voice from paragraph to paragraph. This technique creates a hypertextual experience for the reader in the sense that the different pieces function similarly to hypertext lexias, self-contained fragments which are not necessarily delivered in specific or chronological sequence.
   
Another hypertextual quality of Ceremony is the increased ambiguity of the role of the author. Speaking about hypertextual novels (referred to as “hyperfiction”), Stephen Dinan states that “hyperfiction’s interactive nature challenges conventional notions of authority.” Although the novel format that Silko writes in pre-determines that events will ultimately be read in a sequential order, it is clear that Silko’s non-rigid narrative structure leaves potential room for a kind of hypertextual rearranging or re-reading. Since the scenes so regularly jump around one another in time and subject, each scene can be taken as its own passage, or lexia. Jaishree Odin states, "Silko . . . uses fragmentation and discontinuity in her texts to get the reader intimately involved in the reading of the text, the reader creates her own narrative as she traces her path through the fragmented textual landscape which seems to spill in multiple directions" (Pt. 3).  Looking at Ceremony as a collection of lexias that Silko has laid out for the reader, its interactive nature lies in the responsibility of the reader to take all the different spilling fragments and collect them into a storyline.
    
The interweaving of the Laguna chants with the story of Tayo also challenges the notion of the author’s authority over the narrative. By using actual traditional narrative chants, Silko shares her authority with a second author, the creator(s) of the chants. Silko constructs Tayo’s story to parallel the path of the Laguna stories, and so the two separate narrative strands serve to complement and reflect on one another. The ancient story and the new story push each other along on the same plane, giving insight into one another as they proceed. The end result is a new story larger in scope than either Silko or the chants themselves.
   
But how does a novel benefit from having hypertextual qualities? In Ceremony we can look at the narrative structure in the way that critic Gretchen Ronnow looked at Tayo. Ronnow argued that Tayo’s desire was to become part of the timeless universal process of language, and that “before Tayo can take meaningful action he must transcend developing a rigid ego” (78). In comparison we can look at the linear plot sequence of “beginning, middle and end” as the rigid ego of the narrative, and that the narrative has greater potential by breaking free from this rigid form. A hypertextual novel format would allow Silko to better narrate “the world as it always was: no boundaries, only transitions through all distances and time” (Silko 246). By writing in a non-linear format, Silko demonstrates that both her narrative, and Tayo himself, are greater than the product of a specific sequence of events; they are the sum of all parts available to them both past and present.
    
One notion about Jacques Derrida’s concept of deconstruction is that, “Deconstruction is a strategy for revealing the underlayers of meanings ‘in’ a text that were suppressed or assumed in order for it to take its actual form” (Appignanesi and Garrart 80). Although Silko’s deconstruction of the linear narrative is not the same thing as Derrida’s deconstruction, her technique allows key events and occurrences in the narrative that would normally be separated by chronological time to piece together and unlock each other, revealing deeper meanings and insights. Each piece is put not in order of when it occurred, but in order of which event will help explain and build upon the following event. Ceremony is then not arranged under the rules of either a fixed sequence or a definite beginning and ending so that the story may be more fully understood.
   
Another benefit of Silko using the hypertextual style is in dealing with Tayo’s issue in Ceremony, the problems of a “fragmented” identity. Landow notes of Aristotle’s philosophy, “to be beautiful, a living creature, and every whole made up of parts, must not only present a certain order in its arrangement of parts, but also be certain of a definite magnitude” (181). This would mean that in order to be ideal, both Tayo and the narrative of Ceremony would need to be fixed in a rigid order, certain of their wholeness and identity. However, Tayo cannot arrange his identity in perfect order, and a narrative that would reflect Tayo’s existence could not be arranged in order either. Silko’s quasi-hypertextual narrative works well for Odin, who says of Silko, “her narratives convey the shifting and changing nature of her cultural heritage as it interacts with the dominant culture and with other minority cultures” (Pt. 2).  Thus a non-linear narrative structure allows the reader to better understand the manner in which Tayo (who heritage is modeled similarly to Silko’s) must function as a half-white Native American forced to live between two worlds that he does not fully fit into.   
   
While the hypertext novel format has only been around for a short matter of years, the non-linear narrative has existed for millennia, in the circular nature of Native American stories. The circular nature of stories is a common conception in Native American beliefs, one that is reinforced by Tayo’s grandmother when she says, “It seems like I already heard these stories before . . . only thing is, the names sound different” (260). Ceremony works to include that circular nature through devices such as the novel beginning and ending with the word “sunrise,” reminiscent of the first words of James Joyce’s circular novel Finnegan’s Wake, being the second half of that novel’s last sentence. It is fitting that Silko has merged her Native American storytelling, one of the most traditional of storytelling modes, with the modern Western novelistic storytelling, one of the newest modes. By bringing the influence of the circular narrative to the novel, Silko finds a way to adapt her native culture to the dominant culture she must exist in. Tayo must adapt in the same way, bringing together his experiences in the linear existence of the white world with the circular existence of the Laguna to form an adjusted existence by interweaving the different narrative fragments of which he is constituted.  
   
Almost certainly without intention, by combining ancient and modern narrative techniques, Silko creates a narrative structure which seemingly helped open the door to the most modern and progressive of storytelling formats. Flipping through the pages of Ceremony could easily remind a hypertext reader of clicking through lexias. One page features a single word, the next page features a paragraph of text, and the one after that contains a center-aligned story about a hummingbird. Although hypertext creates the feeling of greater freedom and control for the reader, it is arguable that works such as Ceremony are no less liberal in structure than the “decentered and non-hierarchical world of hypertext” (Odin Pt. 1). Both novel and hypertext are irrevocably written by an author, and thus the story cannot truly be given input by the reader, only at best arranged. It is possible that both Ceremony and hypertext are merely precursors to future modes of group storytelling which could be achieved online with unlimited writers and readers. People around the world might sit at their computers like the ancient Laguna crowding around a fire, sharing and creating new chants and stories together.          

   

Appignanesi, Richard and Chris Garrart. Introducing Postmodernism. New York. Totem Books,        1995.

Dinan, Stephen. “Read What You Write, Write What You Read.”   The University of Texas at Austin.   28 May 2003  <http://www.cwrl.utexas.edu/%7Erunnion/309/fall98/hyrhetoric/dinan_prj2.htm>.

Landow, George P. “Reconfiguring Narrative.” Hypertext 2.0: The Convergence of Contemporary Critical Theory and Technology. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins UP, 1997. 178-218.

Odin, Jaishree K. “The Performative and Processual--A Study of Hypertext/ Postcolonial     Aesthetic.” Political Discourse: Theories of Colonialism and Postcolonialism.   University Scholars Programme, National University of Singapore.  28 May 2003
<http://www.cyberartsweb.org/post/poldiscourse/odin/odin4.html>.

Ronnow, Gretchen. “Tayo, Death, and Desire: A Lacanian Reading of Ceremony.”   
Narrative Chance: Postmodern Discourse of Native American Indian Literatures. Ed. Gerald Vizenor. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1989. 69-90.

Silko, Leslie Marmon. Ceremony. New York. Penguin Books, 1986.

Copyright 2003 Ian King.  Essay used with author's permission.
This essay may not be reproduced in any form without the express written consent of the author.