Character analysis
Abel
in House Made of Dawn by N. Scott Momaday
Abel is the fractured protagonist of N. Scott Momaday's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, a young man from the Jemez Pueblo whose life revolves around displacement, trauma, and a desperate quest for wholeness. The story begins with Abel running at dawn—an image that frames his journey as a struggle to reconnect with the ceremonial rhythm of his people. After losing his mother and brother Vidal, he is raised by his grandfather Francisco. When Abel returns from World War II, he is profoundly broken: his inability to speak coherently upon returning home signals a deep fracture between himself and language, land, and identity.
His disorientation leads him into a brief, intense affair with Angela St. John, a white woman who projects her desires onto him. He also faces a fateful confrontation with Albino Juan Reyes during the rooster-pull ceremony. Abel kills the Albino—an act he sees as freeing the world from a witch—and ends up imprisoned for six years. After being paroled to Los Angeles, he drifts through a bleak urban Indian relocation program, befriended by Ben Benally and briefly by Milly, all while enduring brutal beatings from the corrupt cop Martinez. Tosamah's sermons both illuminate and mock Abel's silence.
The novel's climax brings Abel back to Walatowa, where Francisco is dying. As he prepares his grandfather's body and later joins the dawn runners, Abel finally reclaims the ceremonial world. His journey shifts from fragmentation to a tentative reintegration—not a triumphant healing, but a hard-won return to the land and its ancient rhythms. Key traits include silence, violence as displaced grief, physical endurance, and a deep, inarticulate spiritual longing.
Who they are
Abel serves as the fractured, largely silent protagonist of N. Scott Momaday's 1969 Pulitzer Prize-winning novel. A young Jemez Pueblo man from the village of Walatowa, he navigates the challenging intersection of two conflicting worlds: the ancient ceremonial rhythms of his people and the violent reality of mid-twentieth-century America. Momaday introduces him mid-motion—running at dawn—and this image of strained, wordless movement characterizes him throughout. Abel does not embody a traditional hero. He embodies a man whose interiority lacks expression, someone who "had not got the right words together" to articulate his feelings. His silence reflects not passivity, but the effect of a wound so profound it has severed him from language, land, and identity. The novel's formal fragmentation—its shifting chronologies and multiple narrators—mirrors Abel's broken consciousness, making the structure itself an argument about his condition.
Arc & motivation
Abel's arc revolves around exile and the tentative journey toward return, passing through three broad phases: belonging, destruction, and partial reintegration. Before the war, he exists within Walatowa's ceremonial world, albeit imperfectly—his grandfather Francisco serves as his link to that order. Military service shatters whatever fragile coherence he had. He returns unable to communicate coherently with Francisco, a failure that Momaday presents not as personal weakness but as the outcome of being forced into an alien framework of violence and meaning.
His deepest motivation is clear: he seeks to return to the center. He recalls a time when "had been long ago at the center, had known where he was," and the entire novel explores how far he has drifted from it and the cost of finding his way back. Every destructive act—killing the Albino, drinking, drifting through Los Angeles—can be seen as misdirected attempts to restore order or to feel something coherent. His return to Walatowa after Francisco's death, culminating in the dawn run, does not signify triumphant recovery but represents a hard, quiet reorientation: he begins to sing, though "there was no sound, and he had no voice; he had only the words of a song."
Key moments
The Rooster Pull: Abel's participation in the rooster pull ceremony upon his return from war marks his initial attempt to re-enter ceremonial life, leading to humiliation and obsession. The Albino's eerie dominance during the game becomes a lingering supernatural threat for Abel, setting the stage for the novel's most significant act of violence.
The killing of the Albino: Abel murders the Albino with his bare hands in a drunken confrontation, perceiving him as a witch whose unnatural presence poisons the world. This act serves as the pivotal moment in the novel—it reflects both Abel's genuine engagement with Pueblo spiritual belief and his catastrophic failure to navigate the boundary between that belief and the legal world he inhabits. This act results in six years of imprisonment.
The beatings by Martinez: In Los Angeles, the corrupt cop Martinez breaks Abel's hands—the very hands that killed the Albino. This represents Abel's lowest point. The destruction of his hands, which hold the potential for both violence and creativity, indicates an almost total erasure of self that precludes any possibility of recovery.
Washing Francisco's body: When Abel returns to Walatowa and prepares his dying grandfather’s body according to tradition, he performs the first purely ceremonial act of his adult life without engaging in self-destruction. "His grandfather had spoken to him in the old way, and he had understood."
The final dawn run: Abel joins the other runners at dawn, smearing himself with ash in traditional fashion. He runs in pain, barely surviving, yet he runs—and under his breath, he begins to sing. The novel concludes here, incomplete and unresolved but distinctly oriented toward something.
Relationships in depth
Francisco serves as the moral and spiritual center of the novel, with Abel's bond to him being the only connection capable of pulling him back. Francisco's dying interior monologues—recalling the bear hunt, dawn runners, and corn dancers—transmit vital memories. Abel absorbs these, and the final run suggests this transmission has succeeded. Their largely wordless relationship paradoxically becomes the most fluent connection in Abel's life.
The Albino acts as Abel's dark mirror and the novel's most ambiguous figure. Abel interprets him through a traditional Pueblo lens—a witch needing destruction to restore balance—and Momaday does not fully refute this view. The killing is both a culturally coherent act and an arbitrary act of violence, and this irreducible duality ultimately dismantles Abel's place in both worlds.
Angela St. John exacerbates Abel's alienation despite her desire for him. She romanticizes his body and his otherness, drawing something vital from their affair for her own renewal, offering nothing that truly corresponds to his needs. Her later telling of a bear story to her son, paralleling Abel's heritage, hints at genuine, if parasitic, cultural absorption. Their relationship remains fundamentally transactional and unequal.
Ben Benally represents Abel's most supportive human connection outside Walatowa. As a Navajo man who has adapted better to urban life, Ben provides companionship and brotherly support, sitting with Abel after Martinez's beatings and singing Night Chant songs over him. His narration of the Los Angeles sections offers the clearest external window into Abel's suffering, marked by unwavering loyalty that demands nothing in return.
Tosamah serves as an intellectual foil who both illuminates and injures. His sermons on the power and risk of language directly address Abel's silence, yet he mocks Abel as a "longhair" unable to navigate modernity. Tosamah represents Indigenous adaptation achieved at a psychological cost that he projects onto others, and his cruelty toward Abel signifies displaced self-contempt.
Connected characters
- Francisco
Francisco is Abel's grandfather and primary caregiver, the living embodiment of Pueblo ceremonial tradition. His dying monologues—recalling the dawn runners, the bear hunt, and the corn dancers—transmit the cultural memory Abel must absorb to heal. Abel's final act of washing Francisco's body and joining the run enacts the restoration of their bond.
- The Albino (Juan Reyes)
The Albino is Abel's most fateful antagonist. Abel perceives him as a witch whose pale, uncanny presence embodies evil and disorder. Abel kills him with his bare hands during a drunken confrontation, an act that lands him in prison and accelerates his exile from Walatowa—making the Albino the pivot point of Abel's destruction and eventual quest for redemption.
- Angela St. John
Angela is a white woman seeking sensation and self-renewal who initiates a sexual relationship with Abel. She romanticizes and appropriates his otherness, and their affair deepens Abel's alienation rather than healing it. Her later retelling of a bear story to her son, which echoes Abel's own heritage, suggests she absorbed something real from him—though the exchange remains fundamentally unequal.
- Ben Benally
Ben is Abel's closest friend and surrogate brother in Los Angeles, a Navajo man who has adapted more successfully to urban relocation. He narrates a large section of the novel, providing an outside perspective on Abel's suffering. Ben's loyalty—sitting with Abel after Martinez's beating, singing Night Chant songs—represents the fragile community Abel finds in exile.
- John Big Bluff Tosamah
Tosamah, the Priest of the Sun, is an ambivalent mirror for Abel. His brilliant sermons on language and the Word illuminate Abel's own speechlessness, yet he also mocks Abel cruelly, calling him a 'longhair' unable to survive modern life. Tosamah embodies the tension between Indigenous intellectual adaptation and the cost of that adaptation.
- Martinez
Martinez is a sadistic Chicano cop who beats Abel savagely in Los Angeles, breaking his hands. The assault represents the systemic violence the urban environment inflicts on displaced Native men, and Abel's crushed hands—hands that once killed the Albino—become a symbol of his near-total destruction before his return home.
- Milly
Milly is a social worker and Abel's girlfriend in Los Angeles who offers genuine warmth and practical care. Her own history of loss (a dead daughter) creates a fragile emotional parallel with Abel, but their relationship cannot bridge the cultural and psychological gulf that separates them, and Abel ultimately leaves her behind when he returns to Walatowa.
- Father Olguin
Father Olguin is the Catholic priest at Walatowa whose journals reveal a long, frustrated attempt to understand Pueblo life. He officiates at Abel's trial and represents the colonial religious framework that has layered itself over—without replacing—the ceremonial world Abel is trying to reclaim. His presence underscores the spiritual complexity of Abel's environment.
Key quotes
“He was running, and under his breath he began to sing. There was no sound, and he had no voice; he had only the words of a song.”
Abel (narrative voice / third-person narrator)The Dawn Runner (Epilogue / final section)
Analysis
This closing passage from N. Scott Momaday's House Made of Dawn (1968) depicts Abel, the Pueblo protagonist, participating in a dawn race following the death of his grandfather Francisco. The scene echoes the novel's opening, forming a circular structure that reflects the cyclical essence of Native American ceremonial life. Abel runs quietly, carrying only "the words of a song," which alludes to the Navajo Night Chant (the "House Made of Dawn" prayer) woven throughout the novel. This image carries deep significance: Abel has been deeply affected by war trauma, cultural dislocation, and violence, yet in this final act, he reclaims his identity not through words or physical completeness, but through an inner song and ritual movement. Momaday implies that healing and self-identity stem from reconnecting with ancestral ceremony and the land. The lack of an audible voice paradoxically points to spiritual renewal — the song resides where it’s most essential, within. This moment captures the novel’s core conflict between fragmentation and wholeness, silence and expression, and the resilience of Indigenous identity in the face of colonial erasure.
“He had lost his place. He had been long ago at the center, had known where he was, had lost his way, had wandered to the end of the earth, was even now reeling on the edge of the void.”
Narrator (focalized through Abel)The Longhair / Part One: Walatowa, Cañon de San Diego, 1945
Analysis
This passage is from N. Scott Momaday's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel House Made of Dawn (1968) and is told through close third-person narration that centers on Abel, the Pueblo protagonist. It appears early in the book as Abel returns to Walatowa (Jemez Pueblo) after World War II, feeling deeply dislocated—spiritually, culturally, and psychologically—due to his experiences during the war. The phrase "he had lost his place" conveys several meanings at once: it reflects Abel's physical displacement from his homeland and community, his fractured identity as a Native man navigating between Indigenous and Anglo-American cultures, and his disconnection from the ceremonial and cosmological order that once provided his life with significance. The concept of "the center" represents the Pueblo belief that place, narrative, and identity are intertwined—understanding where you are directly informs who you are. The final image of "reeling on the edge of the void" hints at Abel's impending struggles with violence, alcoholism, and exile. Thematically, this passage captures the novel's core concern: the painful consequences of cultural fragmentation and the arduous journey toward healing through language, land, and ceremony.
“The sun rose up on the river and the land. Abel watched it, and he felt the strength of it on his face and hands.”
Narrator (focalized through Abel)The Dawn Runner / Part Four
Analysis
This passage is from N. Scott Momaday's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel House Made of Dawn (1968), told in close third person as Abel watches the sunrise. It appears in the book's final section when Abel, after enduring years of dislocation, violence, and spiritual upheaval, takes part in a dawn race—a traditional ritual of the Jemez Pueblo. This moment signifies his hesitant reconnection with the land, his community, and the natural rhythms of Indigenous life that colonialism and war disrupted. Thematically, the sun transcends being just a natural phenomenon; it represents a living, relational force that is central to Pueblo cosmology. Abel feeling its power indicates an active, reciprocal connection rather than mere observation. This passage captures the novel's central tension and ultimate hope: that a Native man, broken by historical trauma, can heal not by conforming to Euro-American culture but by returning to his ancestral land and traditions. The concise, almost liturgical prose reflects the oral traditions Momaday draws from, emphasizing that the land itself is a sacred text and that a sense of belonging is experienced in the body before it is comprehended in the mind.
“He was alone, and he wanted to make a song out of the colored canyon, the way the women of Torreon made songs upon their looms out of colored yarn, but he had not got the right words together.”
Narrative voice (focalized through Abel)The Longhair (Part 1)
Analysis
This passage is taken from N. Scott Momaday's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel House Made of Dawn (1968), told through close third-person narration centered on Abel, the Kiowa-Jemez Pueblo protagonist. It appears early in the story as Abel traverses the New Mexico landscape near his grandfather Francisco's home, taking in the world around him.
The quote is thematically important for several reasons. First, it illustrates Abel's deep sense of alienation: even though he is on his ancestral land, he struggles to connect with it through language or art. Second, it highlights the novel's main conflict between oral/indigenous expression and the fragmented identity of a World War II veteran caught in a cultural divide. The simile that likens song-making to the weaving women of Torreon is significant — it portrays creation as a careful, skilled assembly of the right elements — and Abel's inability to find "the right words" indicates his spiritual and cultural dislocation. Third, this passage hints at the overall journey of the novel: Abel's path is ultimately about reclaiming his voice, ceremony, and sense of belonging. Momaday uses this quiet moment of creative blockage to express his central theme — the struggle to reconnect with one's own story and land through language.
“The land was still and strong. It was beautiful all around.”
Narrative voice / Abel (focalized perspective)
Analysis
This lyrical passage comes from N. Scott Momaday's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel House Made of Dawn (1968), narrated through a close third-person lens focused on Abel, a young Kiowa-Pueblo man returning home from World War II. The land is described as "still and strong" and "beautiful all around," highlighting a key theme: the sacred bond between Native peoples and their ancestral land. For Abel, the land isn't just a backdrop; it embodies a spiritual essence that promises healing and a return to identity after the traumas of war and displacement. Momaday draws from Navajo and Pueblo oral traditions, especially the Night Chant ceremonial prayer ("Beauty before me, beauty behind me…"), to portray the land as a source of completeness. The simplicity and rhythm of the sentence reflect oral storytelling customs, anchoring the novel's modernist fragmented structure in a lasting, pre-colonial sense of place. Ultimately, the quote captures the novel's message that reconnecting with the land is vital for cultural survival and personal healing.
“His grandfather had spoken to him in the old way, and he had understood.”
Narrator (focalized through Abel)
Analysis
This quiet yet powerful line comes from N. Scott Momaday's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel House Made of Dawn (1968), seen through the eyes of Abel, the Pueblo/Jemez protagonist. After returning from World War II deeply affected and feeling lost, Abel tries to reconnect with the ceremonial traditions of his grandfather, Francisco. The moment described—when Francisco speaks to Abel "in the old way"—is a rare instance of genuine intergenerational connection: the oral, spiritual language of the Pueblo people bridging the gap created by trauma and dislocation. The word "understood" is key; it suggests not just understanding the words but a deeper, embodied recognition of identity, land, and belonging. Thematically, this line captures the novel's core struggle between fragmentation and wholeness. Abel's path is about reclaiming what colonialism, war, and displacement have nearly erased. Francisco's voice—rooted in song, memory, and the rhythms of the earth—becomes the means for Abel to start rebuilding his identity. Therefore, this line represents a subtle turning point, affirming that while cultural continuity is threatened, it is never completely lost.
Use this in your essay
Silence as both wound and resistance: Argue that Abel's inability to speak coherently reflects not only trauma but also a refusal to conform to legal, colonial, and social systems that would define him. Analyze how Momaday employs Abel's silence to critique Western logocentrism.
The body as contested terrain: Abel's body serves as a site for ceremonial meaning (the dawn run, the bear hunt inheritance), sexualized projection (Angela), and state violence (Martinez). Explore the experiences of Abel's body throughout the novel and consider what Momaday suggests about Indigenous embodiment in a colonial context.
Violence and cultural dislocation: Abel both inflicts and endures extreme violence throughout the narrative. Construct a thesis on whether Momaday frames Abel's violence as stemming from cultural coherence, psychological breakdown, or a combination of both—and what this ambiguity reveals about the novel's moral vision.
The structure of the novel mirrors Abel's consciousness: Momaday's non-linear chronology and multiple narrative perspectives formally express Abel's fragmentation. Argue how the novel's structure serves as an argument about trauma and cultural memory.
Partial, not complete, redemption: Challenge the interpretation of the ending as a triumphant healing. Develop a thesis around what the final dawn run does *not* restore—Abel's hands, his voice, his relationships—and assert that Momaday deliberately leaves the ending unfinished to avoid romanticizing Indigenous resilience.