House Made of Dawn

Like Abel in the novel, Momaday grew up on Indian reservations, where his parents—his father was a Kiowa Indian while his mother was part Cherokee—worked as educators. He learned much about several Native American cultures throughout this childhood, and he appreciated the land, language, and oral traditions of American Indians. Momaday drew on this familiarity while writing the book, the title of which comes from a Navajo religious ceremony song, "House Made of Dawn."

In House Made of Dawn, Momaday explores complex ideas about American Indian identity, language, landscape, and cultural conflict in a lyrical, stream-of-consciousness style. His sometimes fractured and circular narrative includes folk tales and legends. The novel also features poetic language and movement, influenced by Momaday's primary focus as a writer: poetry. Momaday uses both first-person and third-person points of view and moves around in time with flashbacks to explicate the depth of Abel's pain.

The plot of House Made of Dawn focuses on Abel, a Jemez Pueblo Indian, and his loss of identity as he returns first to his native community after serving in the U.S. military during World War II. While Abel participates in native rituals, he feels no connection to them. He soon kills an albino man, and is sent to prison. Abel's alienation grows deeper after his release from prison. He is sent to Los Angeles, where he is even more alienated than at home. While Abel has friendships with other Native Americans there, especially Ben, he feels even more disconnected from the land, the people, both white and Indian, and himself. Abel finally returns home to New Mexico again after taking a brutal beating in Los Angeles. He is able to reconnect to his home.

Throughout House Made of Dawn are flashbacks from Abel's childhood, which was stained by the deaths of his mother and brother from alcoholism. Abel was raised by his grandfather Francisco, who participates in native religious rituals as well as in