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| omnipoetics:momaday [2025/04/16 20:49] – [N. Scott Momaday] sydneyb | omnipoetics:momaday [2025/04/24 00:50] (current) – admin |
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| | ====== The Man Made of Words (excerpt) by N. Scott Momaday ====== |
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| ====== N. Scott Momaday ====== | ====== N. Scott Momaday ====== |
| February 27, 1934- January 24, 2024 | February 27, 1934- January 24, 2024 |
| ====== Arrowmaker ====== | ====== Arrowmaker ====== |
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| | Building on the idea of language being the reality of the arrowmaker, Momaday reflects on this on pages 415 and 416 as well as the sense of perspective drawn by observing the arrowmaker's actions through hearing or reading them. For the arrowmaker, he must use language because it is the only thing he knows: "language is the repository of his whole knowledge and experience." (415) He may not possess or may not be able to perceive of other methods to deal with the threat outside the tepee. Language and the limits of it versus other experience is the barrier which separates the arrowmaker from other ideas. The arrowmaker cannot interact with our reality other than through us perceiving him and the power we give him or his story over us. |
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| | It is also a barrier which separates the audience from the arrowmaker. The audience does not know this person, nor when they come from since the tale has been around longer than any living person. "It is worth considering that he survives in our own time and that he has survived over a period of untold generations." (416) So when we look at or hear this story of the arrowmaker, we are left with the context which is given, no more. "The storyteller is nameless and unlettered. From one point of view we know very little about him, except that he is somehow translated for us into the person of the arrowmaker. But, from another point of view that is all we need to know." (416) Similarly to before, we cannot interact with the reality of the arrowmaker other than through us perceiving him and the details which were remembered and transferred from his encounter. |
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| | Language, then, is a limited two-way street in a world that knows no sidewalks. The audience and the arrowmaker are on different sides of the road, temporal and physical boundaries act as the yellow dividing line, oral history acts as the headlights and both the person telling the story to us and our imagining the tale as it is told act as us seeing the headlights and reacting to it (if we need to) The only thing that allows us to communicate with the arrowmaker (and vice versa) is our perception and continuation of the tale, similar to how headlights allow cars to communicate with limited input. Using headlights, similar to language as Momaday says on page 415, "involves elements of risk and responsibility". We may misunderstand or mistranslate the tale (in our example, this would be misunderstanding the headlights and acting by turning up our high-beams instead of down), changing both the story (the other car in our scenario) and the language that we use to tell it (what the road signs and dividing yellow line look like, which are used, where they are placed, etc.) but the core interaction will be the same, through language (driving on the road) and this will always involve some sort of risk (similar to driving). |
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| | Intersecting with this, we could easily swap the arrowmaker here with any piece of literature or anybody and the language could convey any experience. I may have seen a sunset that you have not, and despite how many times I try to describe it to you, no matter how vivid my wording or how much detail I put into it, there is the risk of misunderstanding, misperception, and the real risk of experience alteration through forgetting details or misattributing words. The scene of the sunset can never be fully experienced by you through me telling you about it (regardless of whether I say it, write it, whatever method) and the responsibility we have is to give you as close an approximation to the experience as possible. The risk is that we fail to do so in some regard/s. This is the way of language and is a semiotics issue which is perfectly embodied through the tale of the arrowmaker and Momaday's further analysis in this article. |
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| ====== Works Cited ====== | ====== Works Cited ====== |
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| https://voicesofoklahoma.com/learning-center/famous-oklahoma-poets/ | https://voicesofoklahoma.com/learning-center/famous-oklahoma-poets/ |
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| | {{tag>N_Scott_Momaday}} |
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