Abel is the protagonist of House Made of Dawn. After a short prologue, the novel begins with Abel’s return from fighting in World War II. The war evidently had a dramatic effect on Abel, as he arrives in his hometown inebriated and barely recognizable even to his grandfather. Abel’s struggles with alcohol, violence, corruption, alienation, racism, and marginalization provide insight into the experience of being an Indigenous man in the US in the 1940s. He grew up on a reservation and then fought in a war thousands of miles away. He has experienced violence and racism at home and abroad; as a result, Abel hasn’t found anywhere that he truly belongs. His mother and brother are dead, and his father is absent. All he has are a grandfather who hardly recognizes him and decades of accumulated trauma. In this sense, Abel is a repository for the broader marginalization of Indigenous people. His pain and his struggle to connect to a distant, obfuscated past, represent the experiences of other Indigenous characters, such as Ben Benally.

The war plays an important role in Abel’s alienation. In his unit, his squad mates use racial epithets to refer to him. He feels isolated and alone, leading to strange behavior on the battlefield.