The Way to Rainy Mountain Literary Elements

Historical fictional autobiography

The book takes place in 1732 in Oklahoma in the context of Native Americans’ nomadic life.

First-person narrative

Dull, sad, pessimistic

Momaday is the protagonist and narrator of the story.

Frontiersmen, commonly known as the white men, forcefully take the lands of the natives forcing them to live in abject poverty and suffering for the rest of their lives.

The climax is attained when Momaday decides to follow the wishes and aspirations of the ancestors in honor of his late grandmother.

The white man's arrival in the native's land foreshadowed doom and a hopeless future for the locals. For instance, the white men forcefully took land from the natives, and they banned most of the cultural events annually.

The narrator's conversion to Christianity is understated. Even after converting to Christianity, the narrator's grandmother never abandoned her culture and traditions.

The story alludes to the negative effects of the white man’s intrusion into the native lands.

The images of the plain are vividly described to depict sight imagery. The narrator says, “All things in the plain are isolate; there is no confusion of objects in the eye, but one hill or one are isolated man...” Similarly, the narrator describes the climate of the plains to enable readers to see why the land was so beautiful to the white men who invaded it.

The main paradox is that Aho converts to Christianity but still sticks to her traditional cultural beliefs.

N/A

The Sun Dance refers to the ancient cultural event practiced by the Native people in Oklahoma.

The bear is personified when the narrator says that it has the human ability to scratch the sacred tree.