Exploring Themes of Struggle and Suffering in Native American Novels: A Cultural Heritage Perspective

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Native American Oral Tales
There exists hundreds of Native American oral tales, full of American culture, beliefs,
history, and language. These Native American oral tales have been presented in numerous
novels, featuring similar themes whose objective is enhancing Native American cultural heritage.
The most common Native American oral stories in literature include House Made of Dawn by
Scott Momaday, Pushing the Bear by Diane Glancy, Shell Shaker by LeAnne Howe, Ceremony
by Leslie Marmon and many others. Essentially, these novels feature similar themes such as
struggle and suffering, cultural identity and heritage, greed and satisfaction, decolonization and
corruption, unity, race and many others. This essay will explain the theme of struggle and
suffering across all these Native American novels.
In N. Scott Momaday’s House Made of Dawn, the story talks about a World War 2
veteran named Abel. In the novel, Abel is seen to return home in attempts to adjust to living back
in his homeland where he once lived during childhood (Momaday 55). However, Abel struggles
and finds it difficult to adjust and fit to the cultures and heritage of his home world. In this
context, the theme of struggle and suffering gets evidenced by Abel’s inability to adjust and cope
with new life. In attempts to adjust to the new world, Abel engages in immoral behaviors that are
against the Native American culture and norms. For example, due to Abel’s struggles, he resorts

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to drinking alcohol engages in fight and kills a person, behaviors which land him to jail for some
time ((Momaday 70). Eventually, Abel finds it difficult and struggles to continue with life after
getting out of jail. While this struggle and suffering of Abel sounds dark, the House Made of
Dawn novel brings hope to him as he learns how to embrace his Native American heritage. The
only sad moment is Abel’s inability to adjust, and his ultimate decision to commit a murder.
Diane Glancy’s Pushing the Bear discusses about an old Cherokee myth, where a bear is
used to portray the aspect of greed and satisfaction. In a nutshell, this historical novels contains
the theme of struggle as it explains Cherokees suffering as he endured on the Trail of Tears when
they got removed from their land. Cherokee laments, “As my own great-great-great grandmother
walked and survived the Trail of Tears, I felt especially drawn to Maritole, the narrator, who
represents all women’s voice as they are chased away from their residential homes (Glancy 40).”
Despite the fact that Maritole is the main narrator, other voices are evidenced throughout the
novel; for example Maritole’s soulmate/ husband who is seen to feel helpless; her dad, who
somehow manages to cling to hope, and all other voices in the book contribute to hopelessness
and desperation (Glancy 85). Diane’s Pushing the Bar details the cruelest and saddest episodes
of the Native American history and culture.
In Leslie’s Ceremony, the theme of suffering has also been evidenced. In the start, the
protagonist, Tayo, is very stressed out to the extent that he becomes sick. Tayo is seen to suffer
from what modern doctors would diagnose as post-traumatic stress disorder, due to the bad
experience he has endured while fighting in World War II as well as surviving the Bataan Death
March (Silko 305). Also, Tayo is mourning over the demise of his two closest relatives. To
worsen the matters, Tayo is not only worried about personal feelings but also extremely
concerned of other characters sufferings. For example, Tayo gets enraged and sickened of his