An Analysis Of Irritation In House Made Of Dawn

N.Scott Momaday(1934-),the Pulitzer Prize winner for Fiction in 1969,is one of the most excellent novelists in America.His novel House Made of Dawn is considered as an important novel for scholars' research in American Indians' cultural identity.In this novel,Momaday gives a rich description of the character's emotion.Therefore,this thesis analyzes American Indian's emotion in the light of Sianne Ngai's theory of ugly feelings to explore the protagonist Abel's �irritation� in the context of ethnic culture and offer a new angle for understanding Native American literature.The main body of this thesis consists of three chapters.Chapter One provides a detailed study of the protagonist Abel's �irritation� in House Made of Dawn.Persistence and weakness are the unique characteristics of �irritation�,resulting in long-term physical discomfort and emotional repression.Basically,the thesis recognizes Abel's �irritation�.Chapter Two mainly discusses the sociocultural reasons for Abel's irritation,including Abel's rejection by the white world,Abel's exclusion from the Indian tribe and his identity crisis.The rejection by the white world results from the government's oppressive policies and the mainstream society's racial discrimination.Abel's exclusion from the Indian tribe is indicated by his inability to understand the tribal language as well as his alienation from tribal traditions.Accordingly,Abel undergoes identity crisis in such sociocultural environment,which is the crucial cause of his irritation.Chapter Three explains the power of irritation.It mainly analyzes how �irritation� prompts Abel to act after reflecting on his situation.Abel's rebellion against white man's culture offers him power.Thus,he is no longer suppressed by the white men and initiatively reestablishes the link with Indian traditional culture.In this way,he eventually reconstructs his cultural identity.To conclude,the individual is suppressed and fused with irritation in the bicultural context.Nevertheless,irritation also contains positive power.The explosion of suppressed emotion impels the individual to fight against the dominant culture and reflect on his situation.Thus,the individual can restore his identity relying on the traditional culture.