Analysis Of The Poem ' I Am Struck By The Irony Between Momaday ' And The Kiowa Treatment Of Women

Momaday creates a since of nostalgia when discussing about his grandmother and the rainy mountain. The author gives a vivid description of what the mountains and canyons looked like in Montana which helped set the mood of the essay from the beginning. From reading the essay, I also felt a sense of sorrow when describing the Kiowa people and their culture. At the end of the essay, Momaday’s mood felt content because he got to see his grandmother’s

The Way to Rainy Mountain is by no means a normal novel. It does not have the same cookie cutter formation as most books, where the plot goes from beginning to end in neat little chapters. It is not just a simple book, it is a book that has meaning, and it is a book that makes its readers think. It is a book about connections from the past. These connections are like puzzle pieces that the main character, N. Scott Momaday, has to put together in his journey to truly understand his heritage. Through the past, Momaday finds a way to honor his grandmother’s memory and to connect with his Kiowa culture. The past comes in many different forms; it could be the way distant past spanning hundreds of years ago or simply just a minute ago. Momaday

The author shows great adventure, nobility, and fulfillment. He uses a lot of imagery and description in order to help the reader to better understand what is going on. While the author seems to have always known about his ancestry, the death of his grandmother encourages a deeper and more personal exploration of his family background. The author returns to his Grandmother's house where the spirit of the Kiowa tribe is very strong. He does this to get closer to his roots. Each story is followed by a short account of the factual events. Together the stories and the facts work to create a complete picture of the Kiowa way of life. The stories explain the world as the Kiowa saw it. The author historic journey is a process of self-discovery, integration, and finding harmony in life. His nobility in his journey is expressed when he follows his vision to better understand his people. Throughout the story he endures many things with nobility in his heart and mind.

Joan Smetana is an eighty-four year old, four foot ten, Catholic-German woman. She is sister to Mary-Ann Koenig wife to the late-Robert Smetana, and mother to Therese and Mary. She has five grandchildren, one of them in me. I love my grandmother, or as I call her: “Nana.” She is one of those woman that everyone loves, whether you know her or not; however, those who are closest to her, her family, tend to love her more from a distance, but love her none the less. She is literally the center of her family, as her house is in between the homes of her two daughters, otherwise known as my backyard and two streets over from my Aunt Mary. Eighteen years of growing up, knowing she was watching out her window for any sign of trouble and having

Novarre Scott Momaday's book The Way to Rainy Mountain is both a personal and anthropological exploration of the ways of the Kiowa Indian tribe. Momaday was raised on a Navajo Reservation, but was educated within the 'white' university system, where he first gained a reputation as a poet. His work straddles the borders of the genre of autobiography and ethnography. The book is the story of a tribe, a chronicle of both history and myth. "There are on the way to Rainy Mountain, many landmarks, many journeys in the one" (Momaday 4). Although about a people whose lives have been displaced and forever changed as a result of colonialization, the book functions less as a political critique and polemic and more as an internal spiritual journey. "Rather, it describes a process: a people, one person and one family at a time, preserves essential aspects of its heritage, connects through imagination to that heritage, and in so doing, assures its survival" (Charles 66).

Stories never told. Songs never sung. Dances never performed. Such was the crippling reality N. Scott Momaday faced with his grandmother’s death. Her culture, her customs, her traditions, were gone and lost to the world. Yet the memories were still alive. In The Way to Rainy Mountain, Momaday writes about his grandmother’s past, the Kiowa tribe and his experience with its tradition, and his journey to the Rainy Mountain. Through the use of strong sensory detail, figurative language, and unique word choice, Momaday both displays the nuances of the Kiowa tribe and culture, and reconnects back to his ancestry.

In the novels Love Medicine by Louise Erdrich and The Way to Rainy Mountain by N. Scott Momaday, the reader gains views of Native American culture, both past and present, through two disparate means of delivery. Both authors provide immensely rich portrayals through varying literary devices in efforts to bring about a better understanding of problems contemporary Native Americans face, especially regarding their own self-identity.

People come from different backgrounds and ancestral foundations. They are at times defined by these beginnings, and some may end up wanting to know more. Most do not find their ancestral grounding in their childhood but come to realize it later in life. Many have the advantage of being someone and identifying with their culture as a basis of their personality. Maintaining proper and adequate understanding is determined by what one handles and does on a personal, cultural and familial level. Scott Momaday is a reflection of a person who has been born and lives within the culture. His book, Journey to Rainy Mountain, is a collection of poems, memoirs and myths on the Kiowa culture.

The Way to Rainy Mountain is a by N. Scott Momaday influential novel in today 's time, as it depicts the history of the Kiowa culture of how they came to be, their traditions and beliefs along with the truth of how their culture came to an abrupt end. As Momaday undergoes a journey to visit Rainy Mountain, he creates an identity for himself in the Kiowa culture that is portrayed through his use of memory, setting, and structure.

Selflessly Overcoming Obstacles Contrary to popular belief, seemingly devastating hardships motivate people to push themselves away from those very difficulties and fight against them. Far too often, one exhausts all the vitality he finds within himself, struggling to stay afloat on the verge of hopelessness. But just when he almost surrenders, an unexpected wave of inspiration secures him, giving him hope to carry on and eventually start a fight against the misery that once confined them. Throughout both the literary and the real world, this pattern emerges regardless of the time or context. Consider Odysseus, stuck on Calypso’s island, who faces the choice of fighting temptation or remaining faithful to his wife and returning home.

In relation to self-identity, as I was reading Kelley’s discussion of the working class whites, I couldn’t help but to think of my own family during this time. My great grandparents on my mother’s

In her essay “Nine Days of Ruth,” Angela Morales eloquently yet humorously narrates the final nine days of her grandmother’s life. Initially, Morales reminisces about the day her grandmother Ruth passed away projecting a gothic, murky and vacant atmosphere. However, Morales shifts from a leaden tone to a more gratifying voice revealing her grandmother’s life trajectory: betrayal, death, and struggles. The author ends with a eulogy expressing to her grandmother that while other will bury with a different image or perspective in mind, she will bury her as a luminary. Make-believe, fantasy, and imagination play an important role in the essay because it conveys the beauty of death.

Why did N. Scott Momaday choose to take this journey? It was very important for him to be able to share and reflect on the stories, experiences and lessons of his Kiowa ancestors. In the introduction to the book, Momaday described memories of his grandmother and the stories she would share about the Kiowa’s path through the western region from Canada down to Oklahoma and Rainy Mountain. She told Momaday the story of Devil’s Tower and the Kiowa Legend of the bear and fleeing children, climbing up for safety and becoming the stars of the Big Dipper (Momaday 8). As readers progress through the book, we are brought with on a journey through Kiowa history and legends.

My grandmother’s parents immigrated to Johnstown, Pennsylvania from a small town in Poland close to Warsaw. As a young child she spoke two languages Polish at home and English when she went to school or with friends. Life started out very difficult and never really got any easier.. Her life continued to get worse when she lost her husband in a mining accident and her eldest son to a car accident. My grandma used to tell me the stories of their deaths, and how it taught her how strong she really is. She turned the hardships in her life into something beautiful, something joyous, and something sentimental. These moments shaped her into who she is, but they do not define her. These moments that she shares allow me to move on and find something joyful about every situation even if they are not be ideal. When my grandfather passed away my grandmother gave me the strength to look on the brighter side of the situation instead of the sad side.

My grandmother, Esther Turner, has impacted my life in more ways than just simply being there for me, as a grandmother. She’s much more than that, in my eyes. Being the eldest of three, I’ve always taken on more responsibility as the older sister. It was my job to show my little brother and sister which paths were safe to take in this wild, confusing maze called life. At times, I felt like a mother myself, and at a young age, I found myself slightly intimidated by all the responsibilities that were laid on my shoulders. The main person I could talk to freely and openly, without judgment, was my grandmother. We have always been able to speak to each other about any and everything, nothing was off limits. That’s what I think brought us so close, the fact that she accepted me entirely for the person I presented to her.