Grabber: “His upbringing was less than tribal, and more than tribal. Unlike many Indians who find themselves trapped between two cultures, he could draw on the benefits of both” (Schubnell 15-16).

Thesis A: Though Momaday undoubtedly represents an important milestone in the history of Native American literature and culture, his distinctive literary voice transcends that specificity to take on a universal significance.

Essay Map: Momaday’s distinctive literary voice is multifaceted – it comprises his writing style’s “discrete intensity” (Dickinson-Brown), his masterful use of literary devices in his poetry and prose, and, perhaps most importantly, his deep insight into the Native American condition which addresses “why the wholesome American way could not assimilate and sustain everyone on the continent” (Trimmer 228).

Thesis B: Momaday is unquestionably a master of language – a true artist whose works have lent him fame and adoration from literary critics. But therein lies his most obvious shortcoming – Momaday has failed to become an author who is widely read or even recognized by the general public. Despite winning the acclaimed Pulitzer Prize, he has not stood the test of time as a classic author, and he is virtually unknown to the public today, persisting only as an almost secret treasure of the literati. Even so, Momaday’s profound mastery of language in both prose and poetry – as well as his importance in opening the floodgates of Native American literature – warrants his inclusion in the American literary canon.

Literary Works

House Made of Dawn (1968) ---- The Way to Rainy Mountain (1969) ---- Angle of Geese(1974) ---- The Gourd Dancer (1976) ---- The Names: A Memoir (1976) ---- The Ancient Child (1989) ---- In the Presence of the Sun (1992)---- The Native Americans: Indian County (1993) ---- The Indolent Boys (1993) ---- In the Bear’s House (1999)

Biography

  • 1934: Born Navarre Scott Momaday in Lawton, OK, Momaday was taken as an infantto Devil’s Tower in Wyoming and given the Kiowa name “Tsoai-talee” – Rock Tree Boy.
  • 1946: Momaday’s family moves to Jemez Pueblo in New Mexico, where Momaday was not fully accepted as white or as Native. As World War II ended and soldiers returned home, Momaday witnessed the decline of the Native American population as alcoholism and violence grew rampant.
  • 1963: Momaday’s grandmother brings him to see the Tai-me bundle, a sacred Kiowa idol used in their Sun Dance. The visit has a profound impact on him emotionally and psychologically.
  • 1969: House Made of Dawn, Momaday’s first novel, wins the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction.
  • 2007: President George W. Bush awards Momaday the National Medal of Arts.

Distinctive Features of Momaday’s Work

  1. Writing Style
  2. Literary Example: “The white man leaned and struck, back and forth, with only the mute malice of the act itself, careless, undetermined, almost composed in some final, preeminent sense. Then the bird was dead, and still he swung it down and across, and the neck of the bird was broken and the flesh torn open and the blood splashed everywhere about” (House Made of Dawn 40).
  3. Critical Quote: “Momaday’s use of these characteristic features of the modern novel seems appropriate: the world of the Indian in modern America appears to be a world with an eroding center, a world of fragments in danger of losing whatever cultural coherence it still retains” (Trimmer 229).
  4. Literary Devices
  5. Literary Example: “There is a kind of life that is peculiar to the land in summer – a wariness, a seasonal equation of well-being and alertness. Road runners take on the shape of motion itself, urgent and angular, or else they are like the gnarled, uncovered roots of ancient, stunted trees, some ordinary ruse of the land itself, immovable and forever there.” (House Made of Dawn 50)
  6. Critical Quote: “This is extraordinary physical detail…. But it is even more abstract than it is physical, with neither quality detracting from the other. Nor is the abstraction figurative; it is implicit in the detail and the detail is implicit in it” (Dickinson-Brown).
  7. The Lost Chapter: Insight into the American Condition

a.Literary Example: “He could see it still in the mind’s eye and hear in his memory the awful whisper of its flight on the wind. It filled him with longing. He felt the great weight of the bird which he held in the sack. The dusk was fading quickly into night, and the others could not see that his eyes were filled with tears” (House Made of Dawn 20).

b.Literary Example: “He had lost his place. He had been long ago at the center, had known where he was, had lost his way, had wandered to the end of the earth, was even now reeling on the edge of the void. The sea reached and leaned, licked after him and withdrew, falling off forever in the abyss” (House Made of Dawn 92).

c.Literary Example: “And you want to do it, because you can see how good it is. It’s better than anything you’ve ever had; it’s money and clothes and having plans and going someplace fast. You can see what it’s like, but you don’t know how to get into it” (House Made of Dawn 139).

d.Critical Quote: House Made of Dawn “reveals the deficiencies of American culture and affirms the values of Indian culture” (Trimmer 228).

e.Critical Quote: “The trapping and killing of a variety of birds throughout the novel represents metaphorically the sense of imprisonment Abel feels whenever he is forced out of the world he knows and is enmeshed in the confusion of an alien culture” (Trimmer 230).

IV.In Conclusion

  1. Calvino: “The classics help us to understand who we are and where we stand” (134). Momaday has used language to pursue the Native American identity of the past and modern world, and in doing so has delved into a part of the American saga and character that is typically swept under the rug
  2. Bloom: Momaday is not included in Bloom’s canon.
  3. Critical Quote: Momaday: “We are determined by our language; it holds the limits of our development. We cannot supersede it. We can exist within the development of language and notwithout. The more deeply we can become involved in language, the more fully we can exist” (Schubnell 41).