Seeing Mistakes From All Directions *The Closing In*

There were two main themes that I took away from "The Closing In." First
was that people make mistakes or don't live up to expectations. The second
is vision and looking at something from all viewpoints. Each story has at
least one of these themes and usually it is one or the other.

In XIX, both brothers made mistakes of getting caught by the Utes. Even
though they escaped due to perseverance, I doubt it was out of their
control completely. The buffalo hunt in the winter of 1879 did not live up
to the expectations of feeding the tribe. Also, in XX the man did not live
up his horse's expectations of sorts because he felt fear while the horse
did not (a rare occurrence of the animal being superior to man). Mammedaty
made a mistake of shooting his arrow and missing the intended horse and
instead killing another horse.

The theme of vision is relevant in most of the other stories. Momaday
talks about about New Mexico and how he "truly and intimately, in every
season, from a thousand points of view." Momaday also speaks of
Mammedaty seeing a little boy nearby, but then checking for the boy
and not seeing him. Finally, Momaday writes that he believes "a man
ought to concentrate his mind upon the remembered earth." Also, he
talks about the grave where the woman in the beautiful dress is and being
able to see in the direction it is. However, all of these things to do with vision
are actually not seen by the person at the time. They are not really stories,
but more remembrances.

Why would Momaday choose to end his book with a sad theme and a theme
involving the unknown and unseen? He started the "The Going On" with a
very inspirational tale, so why did he not just continue with it?

~A.L.