SOURCE: "The Remembered Earth: Momaday's House Made of Dawn," in South Dakota Review, Vol. 11, No. 1, Spring, 1973, pp. 59-78.

In the following essay, Oleson analyzes the structure and symbolism of House Made of Dawn, paying close attention to the symbol of the earth.

Once in his life a man ought to concentrate his mind upon the remembered earth, I believe. He ought to give himself up to a particular landscape in his experience, to look at it from as many angles as he can, to wonder about it, to dwell upon it. He ought to imagine the creatures there and all the faintest motions of the wind. He ought to recollect the glare of noon and all the colors of the dawn and dusk.

The landscape is of central importance, holy in itself, and closely associated with Momaday's theme in House Made of Dawn, as it is in The...