The Way to Rainy Mountain

What metaphors are used in The Way to Rainy Mountain by N. Scott Momaday?

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“Loneliness is an aspect of the land.”

The author does not reference it, probably because it is a condition associated with white settlers rather than the indigenous populations, known as “prairie madness.” The name indicates the symptoms and it was engendered among some settlers as a result of the isolation of living on the prairie combined with its topographical features. Look off into a horizon seeming to stretch toward infinity and, as the author does observe, "there is no confusion of objects in the eye, but one hill or one tree or one man.”