The characters of John Smith in Sherman Alexie's Indian Killer and Abel in N. Scott Momaday's House Made of Dawn are each alienated from their society, an alienation that actually takes place on several levels--alienation from family, alienation from Indian society, alienation from the larger society of America, and even alienation from the human race. The process of alienation for begins in childhood for John Smith and becomes acute for Abel when he returns from army service in World War II. In both cases, the difficulty of maintaining cultural ties in a subculture that is dominated and oppressed by the white majority.
In Alexie's murder story, a serial killer is operating in Seattle and leaving behind scalped corpses decorated with owl feathers. This leads to a good deal of anti Indian rhetoric and some street violence, both white against Indian and Indian against white. The killer is John Smith, an Indian without a tribe, which alone sets him apart from both groups. His name is clearly an ironic reference to the white captain famous for the story of Pocahantas. John is caught between the two cultures, for while he is Indian by birth, he is Adopted by a white couple. He rapidly slips into a delusional fantasy life in which he is the Native American hero able to right all the wrongs inflicted on Native Americans by European settlers and all those who followed.
This is the impetus for his murderous rampage, though here as well Smith remains confused, acting out the role of serial killer while trumpeting his Native American-ness and so producing even more oppression and anger than existed before. He is really acting out his personal alienation and labeling it as championing the rights of his people, but there is irony in this as well because Smith has no "people." He has no tribe, no grounding in his culture, no background to anchor him, and no relationship with his own heritage beyond what he can create in his mind. ...