"House Made of Dawn" by N. Scott Momaday. A quick analysis...

Both Francisco and Abel are strongly connected to the past in this novel, each paragraph of the present is contrasted against one of the past despite the fact that there is a generational gap between the grandfather and grandson. The past is strongly linked with better times, Francisco recalls “that year he killed seven bucks and seven does” (p.8) reminiscing over better times of his youth, before the problems of the present arise again, haunting him more than any past could. There seems to be a strong disjunction between Francisco and the present world he inhabits; he is supposed to be a respected elder figure, indeed Abel remembers better times with his grandfather on page 10, however with Abel turning up drunk he is forced to “laugh and turn away from the faces” staring. The pervasive flashbacks between both grandfather and grandson unite them and accent the repetition and handing down of events through generations. Contrasting both these men on the reservation is the arrival of Mrs. Martin St. John, new and different, and almost instantly upon hiring Abel she feels she lacks a place “she was aware of some useless agony” (p. 32). It’s interesting that this woman who seems to have no past also watches the skies for “the birds that hied and skittered” (p. 32) and feels the same sense of foreboding as Abel; a sense of being “empty again and eternal beyond all hope” (p. 32). It seems that despite the backgrounds and pasts of these characters, there is an overriding relationship with nature, the past and the present.

The albino at first appears to be a white man to Angela observing the riding contest held for Saint Santiago, riding on a black horse the contrast between the man and his horse is clear. However she soon realises that there is something “unnatural” (p. 43) about the man. Abel’s inability to properly compete in the riding contest is shown through the crowd’s jeers and his wariness. His inability to perform the ritual well and courageously “leaning sharply down on the shoulders of [his] mount” (p. 42) means that the sacrifice to the Saint Santiago is not met, therefore it is not only himself he is letting down, but the village as a whole who relies on the sacrifice to maintain the good will of the Saint. It takes a complete outsider, and one that is uncannily a white man, to successfully snatch the rooster out of the ground, in turn saving the villages crops for that season. In terms of his place within the tribe Abel is an outsider, however in being beaten by an albino, who is far more of an outsider than Abel, means that socially the hierarchy has been upset and symbolically a white man has strived over the Native American again.