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Irony
Definition of Metaphor
A metaphor is a figure of speech that compares two different things by saying that one thing is the other. The comparison in a metaphor can be stated explicitly, as... read full definition
A metaphor is a figure of speech that compares two different things by saying that one thing is the other. The comparison in a metaphor... read full definition
A metaphor is a figure of speech that compares two different things by saying that one thing is the other... read full definition
Prologue
Explanation and Analysis—House Made of Dawn:
The "house made of dawn" in the novel's title is both an allusion and a metaphor. The prologue further elaborates on the house:
There was a house made of dawn. It was made of pollen and of rain, and the land was very old and everlasting. There were many colors on the hills, and the plain was bright with different-colored clays and sands. Red and blue and spotted horses grazed in the plain, and there was a dark wilderness on the mountains beyond. The land was still and strong. It was beautiful all around.
Momaday draws the line "house made of dawn" directly from a Diné healing prayer known as the "Night Chant." Recited as part of a larger ceremony, the prayer is intended to heal more than individual illnesses. It calls for harmony among the earth and all of its people, including humans, animals, plants, and more. In the context of the prayer, the "house made of dawn[, ... ] of pollen and of rain" is the entire natural world that houses the earth's people and gives them the resources they need to survive and create more life. The prayer calls for recognition of the beauty with which the earth surrounds all its people
Momaday quotes sections of the prayer in multiple places throughout the book. This passage from the prologue establishes the "house made of dawn" as a metaphor more specifically for Walatowa, the Jemez Pueblo, and Abel's family. Dawn is not only the sunlight that shines down on the crops, but also the ever-returning hope that Abel and Francisco can keep their people and their home alive in a world made sick by industrial colonialism.
For a long time, Abel believes the modern world has grown too sick to heal. He himself feels beyond healing after World War II. He mourns and flees the Jemez Pueblo because he does not believe either he or the Pueblo can live up to Francisco's hopes. Finally, on the morning of Francisco's death, Abel runs through the valley and realizes that it is all still here. The "many colors on the hills" and the "different-colored clays and sands" represent the patchwork nature of the community. Abel, Father Olguin, Angela St. John, and others have wandered in and out of Walatowa. Their eclectic nature and vibrancy is part of what makes the place beautiful. The horses further represent the valley's resilience and adaptability. Horses went extinct in North America thousands of years ago and were not reintroduced until Spanish colonists brought them over in the 15th century. By the time Francisco and Abel are living in Walatowa, the horses are central to their people's culture. As Abel runs through this "house made of dawn" on the morning of Francisco's death, he embodies a rising hope for a future where Walatowa may change, but where it is still possible for it to heal alongside the people who call it home.
Related Themes:
7. The Longhair, August 2
Explanation and Analysis—Sprung Trap:
In Chapter 7, right after Abel has killed Juan Reyes Fragua, the perspective shifts to Francisco. The short chapter centers on a simile that has broad implications:
"Abelito." The old man Francisco rode out in his wagon to the fields.[...] Without thinking, knowing only by instinct where he was, the old man looked for the reed. It was there still, but the rise of the river had reached it and made it spring; it leaned out of the water, and the little noose hung from it like a spider's thread.
This is the same trap Francisco investigated the night he picked Abel up at the bus stop. It is designed to catch a bird in a noose, and Francisco reset it that night after it caught a disappointing bird. When he checks it again tonight, he finds that the rising water level has sprung it, closing the noose without any prey inside. And yet the simile comparing the noose to a "spider's thread" suggests that even though the trap has been neutralized, it still represents danger.
The way Francisco utters Abel's nickname at the start of this passage suggests that somehow, he already knows that his grandson is the one caught in the "noose." The rising water represents the rising tension Abel feels throughout the first part of the novel. He has just returned home from a traumatic battlefield experience, an experience he only went through because the United States drafted him into the armed services. This is the same government whose policies have been harming his family his entire life and for generations before. He feels utterly exploited and abandoned, and he struggles to find his way to any kind of normalcy. When Juan Reyes Fragua, a man with the whitest skin imaginable, beats him with a rooster at the Feast of Santiago, Abel practically boils over with obsessive rage. His rage drives him to murder just like the rising water triggering the bird trap.
Momentarily, Abel may feel triumphant and relieved that he has killed the man who has humiliated him. He is finally demonstrating that he will not be kept down by military tanks or the exploitation and abuse of White men (whether they are truly White or merely look it). Francisco is better positioned to understand that the murder makes everything worse: Abel will go to prison for what he has done. If he is ever to come home, he will have to claw his way back from even further trauma within a colonial system that is stacked against him. Revenge against Fragua, symbol of Whiteness that he is, was the tempting bait that led Abel straight into this trap and left him dangling.
Related Themes:
