American Modernism and House 'Made of Dawn'

Studienarbeit aus dem Jahr 2012 im Fachbereich Amerikanistik - Literatur, Universität Bayreuth, Sprache: Deutsch, Abstract: When Navarre Scott Momaday first published his award-winning novel House Made of Dawn, literary critics celebrated the book as the Renaissance of Native American Literature. The novel, which won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction in 1969, has influenced both readers and well-known Native American writers such as Leslie Marmon Silko or Sherman Alexie since its first publication. Moreover, it has certainly made the success of Native American Literature possible. This is one of the reasons why Momaday can be considered as the 'dean of Native American writers' (Hager 2). House Made of Dawn is about Abel, a young Native American who returns home to Walatowa from World War II. There, he struggles to reintegrate into the tribal community as he is torn between two different worlds. On the one hand, it is the traditional environment of his pueblo where life depends very much on the rhythm of the seasons. On the other hand it is the world of a modern and industrialized America. As one of the first Native American writers, Momaday combines both native and non-native features of storytelling in House Made of Dawn. Throughout the years, many fields of this complex and ambiguous novel have been interpreted by a remarkable number of critics. Some have been concerned with the role of oral tradition in House Made of Dawn, others have stressed the importance of Momaday´s biographical background for the novel.