Introduction
When it was first published in 1968, N. Scott Momaday’s House Made of Dawn garnered scarce critical and commercial attention. Yet within a year, it […]
House Made of Dawn
N. Scott Momaday
Momaday was born on the Kiowa Reservation in Lawton, Oklahoma, on February 27, 1934. His father, Alfred Morris, was an artist and teacher; in fact, […]
Plot Summary
A Prologue The very first section of House Made of Dawn creates the mood for the story. Set in a canyon at sunrise, the protagonist […]
Characters
A Abel The protagonist of the story, Abel is a Native American war veteran who struggles to find his place in the world. Some critics […]
Themes
A Prejudice and Tolerance Strangely, for a novel about Native American suffering in the white world, there is not a lot of overt prejudice on […]
Construction
A Point of View In this novel, Momaday often shifts from one point of view to another; as a result, it is not always clear […]
Historical Perspective
A The Postwar Reservation As with many other minority groups in America, Native American populations became more connected with the mainstream culture as a result […]
Compare and Contrast
Late 1940s: After Europe is decimated as a result of World War II, America becomes an economic superpower, creating a thriving economy and a population […]
Further Reading
One of Momaday’s best-known works is The Way to Rainy Mountain (1969), his history of the last days of the Kiowa people. Momaday’s childhood on […]