😊 Here below listed are the important aspects about Unit Seven.

I.Theme

While “The Way to Rainy Mountain” is the story of the Kiowa migration, it is also, at its heart, a story about stories. Most important, Momaday emphasizes language as a tool for cultural survival. The Kiowas are a people whose culture has been under attack for more than a century by the U.S. government. With the Kiowa way of life in decline, it is in spoken language (the Kiowa oral tradition) that Kiowa culture and history are preserved.

“The Way to Rainy Mountain”, then, is not simply a history that tells of the Kiowa past, but a living document that attempts to project Kiowa culture into the future by preserving its traditions for generations to come. The book can be seen as Momaday’s attempt to use language and storytelling to stake out his place in the world and actively maintain and promote a culture that might otherwise fade out of memory.

II. Writing Devices

“The Way to Rainy Mountain” was written by N. Scott Momaday. His descriptive writing vividly portrays a person, place, and the things in a lyric way by using may different figures such as Simile, Metaphor, Metonymy, thus make his work an excellent piece of prose.

• Simile: “popping up like corn to sting the flesh”

• Metaphor: “the prairie is an anvil’s edge”

• Synecdoche: “those high gray walls” 代指上文所说的石头畜栏。

• Metonymy: “They accuired horses, and their ancient nomadic spirit was suddenly free of the ground” “the ground” 意指这些游牧人曾经没有马只能用脚走路的山地生活，用the ground表示大山生活。

• Personification: “At a distance in July or August the steaming foliage seems almost to writhe in fire”

• Hyperbole: “Descending eastward, the highland meadows are a stairway to the plain”

• Alliteration: “brittle and brown, willow and witch Great green-and yellow grasshoppers”

III. Key Expressions

a single knoll rises out of the plain 一座孤零零的小山拔地而起

a matter of disposition 出于本性, 由于习惯

lose the sense of proportion 失去(正常的)比例感

positively classified 明确地归类

beyond all comparison 无可比拟, 无以伦比

a lot of coming and going 人来人往

bore themselves upright 腰板挺得很直

made of lean and leather 精瘦

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