Areas of Gray
The points in a novel and in society where overlap occurs between the powerful and the weak show places of conflict and possibly resolution. Does the mixture of different cultures bring the less powerful closer to authority or separate the mixture from the two "pure" forms. In Maus the Jews who associate themselves with the Nazi's seem to do quite well, but in Ceremony Tayo's mixed heritage leaves him devoid of a solid cultural heritage.
"I'm a half-breed. Ill be the first to say it. I'll speak for both sides. First time you walked down the street in Gallup or Albequerque, you knew. Don't lie. You knew right away. The war was over, the uniform was gone. All of a sudden that man at the store waits on you last, makes you wait until all the white people bought what they wanted." (Ceremony 42)
Tayo himself is a mixture of white and Indian blood and white and Indian culture. Tayo's mother was scorned for having the child of a white man. Tayo's heritage made him the butt of many jokes and catcalls. There is always the question of whether a mixture will make a new beautiful color or just serve as a form of two dirtied purities. In Tayo's case it was, at least in the beginning, the latter. He was not accepted into the white community because he was a mulatto and to the Indians he was a symbol of more white influence in their community. When he went to World War II, Tayo was fighting for America and was treated like a king. In the US uniform, as if hidden by a cloak of whiteness Tayo was accepted as a soldier and loved by the white women. Once Tayo returned to the reservation, however, his experience of inundation in the white culture as also through the vividness of violence, like the violence that had once trounced his people, made him incompatible to Indian culture. Only the Ceremony could heal Tayo of the destruction of his difficult identity and his nebulous place in the world. America came to symolize the land of the whites, as if their naming of the continent, like their naming of the "Indians" made them the owners.
"I only converted to make Vladeg happy."(Francois) "Yeah, but nothing could make him happy."(Art) (Maus II 12)
"She was a Hungarian girl, Mancie, who worked sometimes there. Beautiful. A tall, blonde girl. And clever. She had a lover, I heard later. An S.S. man. He got for her a good position over 10 or 12 other girls from Birkenau." (Maus II 52)
In Maus the instance of mixing also comes in relationships with the blond Jew at Auschwitz and Art and Francois. The blond Jew at Auchwitz had a powerful position because of her relationship with a German soldier. Unilike Tayo, her mixing had pulled her from the base level of most of the Jews to a higher plane towards the Germans. This phenomenon was even evident amoung Jews before the war who joined the Nazi's to protect themselves. Art and Francois show the opposite of this distancing from the Jews, as Francoise changed herself through conversion to Judaism to placate Vladeg. To Francoise her relationship to Art was much more important than a religious issue. To the Jews and the Nazis the Jewish faith was something to be dealt with with lifelong passion.