The Ancient Child | Themes

The Ancient Child Themes

Momaday's multicultural sources for this novel serve as the background to his greater purpose: to show the ways public story-telling and private selfnarrative shapes one's identity. In a culture that is examining the stories we tell about ourselves, that is exploring the connections between the stories we tell about ourselves to ourselves and self-esteem (or the lack of it), in a society that is questioning its use of the media, labels, jokes and stereotypes to tell stories on its subcultures, Momaday shows the positive potential of storytelling and ritual in the process of self-creation. Momaday's acute awareness of the language and its impact makes a language-sensitive, insightful novel about personal growth.

Momaday also indicates his aesthetic theories regarding the purposes and uses of literature in a remarkable passage in the novel. Grey reads a passage from a book (the passage comes from Momaday's The Names, 1976) regarding a...
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