Man Scott Momaday, in Both

¶ … Man

Scott Momaday, in both his poetry and in his criticism, shows an incisive knowledge of humanity and of the functions and nature of language. Especially evident in much of his writing, and made explicit in his commentary and criticism at several points, is the connection that exists between language and humanity, and the manner in which language is truly the only vehicle by which a sense of humanity can be achieved or expressed -- and vice versa, one might argue. The imagination also plays an important role in Momaday's writing and his philosophy of man, and is strongly linked to language; it is the ability to associate elements of the world with elements of thought -- that is, expressible thought, which is language almost by definition -- in a free and unhindered manner that is the essence of humanity, and this is imagination. It is what allows man to perceive himself and the world around him in a meaningful and communicable way. This assertion makes its presence known in a variety of ways and with wide implications throughout Momaday's works.

In an essay titled, "The Man Made of Words," (1970), Momaday writes, "the state of human being is an idea, an idea which man has of himself. Only when he is embodied in an idea, and the idea is realized in language, can man take possession of himself" (88). That is, it is only when man can imagine himself in a way that is expressible to others -- and more importantly, to himself -- in a concise and repeatable manner that he has truly achieved the status and being of "man." An idea, after all, is a concise and repeatable expression of some naturally occurring complexity, meaning it has been framed in a conscious way, and man is the creature of consciousness.

According to Momaday, it is precisely the gift of language that allows for this framing, and is the automatic hallmark of consciousness in the human sense. This is made perhaps more clear by the story of the arrowmaker, with which Momaday opens "The Man Made with Words." Spotting an intruder outside his teepee, the arrowmaker converses in his wife in normal tones, yet he is actually asking the stranger outside to identify himself if he understands the language being spoken. Receiving no response, the arrowmaker shoots and kills his enemy. According to Momaday, this story, "centers upon [the] procession of words to meaning. It seems in fact to turn upon the very idea that language involves the elements of risk and responsibility" (11). When language is the creative and identifying force, it necessarily and automatically carries the weight of the world and all of survival on its shoulders.

In his memoir The Names (1996), which the author himself considers both autobiographical and a work of the imagination, language and imagination are again both seen as the essential creative force both in terms of thought and in terms of reality. That is, it is through the author's recollected imaginings and understandings of the language around him that he constitutes his perception of recollected reality. In the scene where he recalls being prayed over, the only words "the boy" understands are the closing words following a Kiowan prayer, "In Jesus' name. Amen" (73). Just as the author only speaks English, and only spoke English then, the truly salient features of his world are those defined by -- and as defined by -- the English language that he can use to take in and express ideas.

Later on in The Names, Momaday again makes it clear that language is the truly formative feature of existence and humanity, and especially of the ability to share that humanity (which might be the very essence of humanity, after all). In describing what sounds like the perfect symbiotic relationship: "The words we had were the right ones; we were easy and right with each other, as it happened, natural, full of love and trust. 'Look,' one of us would say to the other, 'here is something new, something that we have not seen together'" (154). This last sentence is especially important -- it is not only the ability to converse and share ideas with another that makes language such a defining feature of humanity and consciousness, but it is the coupling of this ability with the ability to imagine that other -- and thus oneself -- without another, in an entirely separate context, that makes language spectacular in this instance. The idea of shared experience necessarily implies the concept of solitary experiences, and it is imagination and language's ability to bridge the gap of separate self-hoods and create an awareness of self and other that makes humanity what it is.

The truly far-reaching implications of Momaday's thoughts on the creative aspect of language and imagination become clear in his book The Way to Rainy Mountain (1976). In this book, the author visits the story of the Kiowa people, the people of his own heritage if not of his language. Throughout the story of their travels, imagination and language take on highly creative roles, organizing the world into intelligible units and forces that can be manipulated only after they are understood. Language does not just allow for a sense of self, but also for an understanding of reality.