Reading Questions for The Way to Rainy Mountain and "The Man Made of Words"
by N. Scott Momaday
prepared by Margaret BoyerFront Material, pages 1-14
The Setting Out, pages 15-41
The Going On, pages 43-63
The Closing In, pages 65-83
Epilogue, pages 85-88
The Rainy Mountain Cemetery, page 89This very simple looking book becomes more complex to me every time I read it; read it through, noting what strikes you and don't struggle to "understand"; then, go back to analyze and contemplate. Note your overall impression of the whole book; what one thing in each of the large 3 sections of the text stands out to you–an image, a motif, a theme, an idea? connections with anything else we've read? you've heard of? whatever—
1. First, note first the structure of the book, starting with the acknowledgments; then the Table of Contents; the poem "Headwaters"; the Prologue and Introduction; use of pictures and captions; sections and divisions of those sections; the placement of paragraphs on page, fonts used, use of white space, types of reporting; the Epilogue; the picture; the poem "Rocky Mountain Cemetery"; back of book–design, what others have said.
2. Now, to the front poem: what is the topic? what about language? imagery? speaker? form? meaning(s)?
3. Whose voice is "speaking" the Prologue? What information are we given? What kind of journey(s) are included? What is the connection between the "imagination" and "memory"? Note the language–and the quotation–on 2nd page.
4. What does the Introduction provide in the way of information, "type(s)" of history, images, places, tradition; note–always!–Momaday's language; and, what do the silhouettes accomplish for the reader of WRM?
5.As you read the first division of this section, can you identify a common thread holding the three paragraphs together? what kind of "reports" are given? what is the subject? what about language?
6. What topics appear in these divisions? in each, note the items in #5 and mark anything that puzzles you, that you like, that surprises you.
7. In this section, do the divisions differ in tone, topic, language, imagery, point of view, form, etc. from the ones in the first section? Check out the first division of Setting Out and then, the first one of Going On–what strikes you (if anything)? Do the same with this section as you did with the first one in #s5 and 6.
8. Again, what happens here that is the same as/different than the first two large sections? How specifically and where? Any ideas why (i.e., what happens to mythological, legendary, "factual" and personal accounts)?
9. The authorial voice purports to have "added" this after all else was written; does this fulfill the function of an epilogue? why? whose voice do we hear at the very end? What about the picture of the falling stars?
The Rainy Mountain Cemetery, 89
10. Read this out loud! note images, ideas, themes, motifs and words chosen–and look them up in a dictionary!
An added suggestion for after you have read the book through (at least!): read all the left sides of the pages through, then the first paragraphs on the right sides and then, the last paragraphs on the right sides. What happens to your understanding of what is going on? Momaday was trained in the "Modernist" school of literature (and James Welch was greatly influenced by the same ideas).
This version of this essay originally was published in 1979, was anthologized in 1980 and has appeared in numerous versions since then, the most recent in Momaday's own book by the same title. I have chosen the original instead of the most recent because of this essay's compactness. You will find repetition of sections of WRM; you will find explanations; you will be given information in a more straight forward narrative fashion.
Note: he mentions that it is morning in the first paragraph; later on, he refers to "tonight"; what could this detail mean?
1. What is his topic for this essay (talk?)?
2. What is an "American Indian" according to Momaday? why is the definition a "moral idea"?
3. What experience does he relate? How does he connect the imagination with history?
4. Immediately after his relation of this experience, Momaday discusses land, the "remembered earth" and so brings in memory (the same paragraph that ends the third section of WRM); he speaks of the past and the present and then, he has set poem that ends the text WRM. He speaks a little later on of a "land ethic"–what do you think he means by this term? what would it entail? how could we distinguish one ethic from another?
5. Who is Ko-sahn and her relationship to his grandmother and to him?
6. What are the questions that interest Momaday? What do you think he means by these questions? Any hypotheses you would offer?
7. Where is Ko-sahn in this exchange? Is she "real"? What does it mean to be a "figment of someone's imagination" anyway?
8. What is writing? Do you agree with him? (how are writing and speech the same and how different? what are the implications of these similarities and differences? what is the implication if writing is recorded speech only–or v. v?)
9. He explains the oral tradition. This is a section to note carefully; our next consideration will be oral literature and let's keep in mind what Momaday says and what I will be saying–should be interesting.
10. What is storytelling? Why does a story "work" according to Momaday? What do you think–when does a story "work" for you?
11. He includes the "old journey of the Kiowa" because it tells us something about the "tribal mind"; what seems to be a "tribal mind," then?
12. What was the original text that became WRM? What are his terms for the three narrative voices we noted in the book? Why use the journey as a literary device?
13. He tells the story of an arrowmaker; look at the one in WRM again; differences? what could differences point to? What is the story of the arrowmaker about according to Momaday? Do you agree? What do you see in the story?
14. Think about Momaday's way of close reading. Do you think he "makes too much" of a short tale? Why or why not?
15. Think about the last comments in this essay; why do you imagine are they about survival?.