Blooms Literary Themes - THE TRICKSTER.pdf - ymerleksi - home

98
N. Scott Momaday
fearsome experiences of his life—when Death had been near—he can
remember pleasure and beauty.
Claude Levi-Strauss identifi es the “underlying conceptual opposition
in the trickster myths [as] that between the abstract concepts Life
and Death” (302). Tosamah can lead Abel back into life through ritual
stories and ceremonies because he has helped to propel him through
his remembered encounters with Death.
Th e penultimate aspect of the entire narrative of House Made of
Dawn as healing ceremony—not only for Abel, but also for other
Native Americans—is Abel’s experience of being present at his grandfather
Francisco’s death bed. Listening to Francisco tell stories of his
own rites of passage at the end of life, Abel demonstrates that he
has conquered his terror of death, both by being able to stay with his
grandfather during the dying process and by executing the appropriate
rituals for his grandfather’s body. Th e process of dying is perhaps the
most profoundly liminal period in any life. Th us, his grandfather’s
stories are especially salient because Abel hears them during this
liminal time. Th e stories are his fi nal instruction in how to relate to the
Great Mystery of Being. Not surprisingly, Abel’s experience of hearing
his grandfather’s stories echoes Tosamah’s stories of his grandmother.
Momaday is able to reveal language in Abel’s world as the
profoundly moral and spiritual practice that it is in the hands of
Trickster. Yet, Momaday is very careful to indicate at the end that
although Abel is on a healing path, he is not yet fi nished with his
journey because he does not yet completely possess language: “He was
running, and under his breath he began to sing. Th ere was no sound,
and he had no voice; he had only the words of the song. And he went
running on the rise of the song. House made of pollen, house made of
dawn. Qtsedaba” (212). Both dawn and pollen speak of beginnings;
both are liminal elements. As Victor Turner reveals, “Liminality is
pure potency, where anything can happen” (577). Abel is running and
singing because, thanks to his trickster, he now knows that anything
can happen. Because Momaday concludes his story with this liminal
moment, we have faith that Abel will fi nd his voice.
House Made of Dawn is a visionary novel that appeared at a time
when both Native Americans and the Anglo culture were in desperate
need of vision. Momaday declared later that Abel represents “a great
many people of his generation” and is “an important fi gure in the
whole history of the American experience in this country” (Coltelli