Formal Architecture of Trauma in Momaday's House Made of Dawn: A Hermanian Perspective

Abstract

Judith Herman's (1992) post-traumatic stress disorder model is not only a thematic interpretation of the protagonist Abel's psychological state in Momaday's House Made of Dawn, but also the formal structure that governs the novel's narrative. The study uses Catherine Belsey's model of textual analysis as the research method. It analyzes the novel's three symptom clusters of: hyperarousal, intrusion, and constriction, and how they organize the novel's non-linear chronology, its polyvocal fragmentation, and its strategic use of silence at the formal rather than thematic level. The findings show that Abel's inability to speak is formally a representation of the colonial separation of an individual from his ceremonial language, the war flashback sequence is a formal representation of traumatic intrusion, and Herman's reconnection phase is formally represented in Ben Benally's Night Chant. This formal reading is represented in the article as an original contribution to trauma studies and Native American literary scholarship.