Assignment 3:7 – Hyperlinking GGRW

For this assignment, I will be discussing and hyperlinking as much research as I found (through my own volition and through Flick’s reading notes.) Here is the exact assignment description:

Write a blog that hyper-links your research on the characters in GGRW using at least 10 pages of the text of your choice. Be sure to make use of  Jane Flicks’  GGRW reading notes on your reading list.

The pages I have decided to use are from the 1993 edition of Green Grass Running Water, by Thomas King. The exact page numbers are 410-420.  I will separate this blog by which characters I am choosing to discuss.

Alberta Franklin
There are many different allusions to Alberta Franklin that I believe Thomas King wanted to make. The most literal of these would be the allusion to the city of Frank, Alberta.  In pages 412-413, Alberta Franklin is the main focus as she discusses her surprise pregnancy with Lionel. Previously, we have learned that Alberta rejects the notion of marriage (pg. 85). Regardless, she wants to have a child. I think the unexpected pregnancy element could tie into the city of Frank due to the Frank Slide of 1903. While I’m not saying that pregnancy is akin to a catastrophic event, I do believe that it is very life-changing and the fact that it was unexpected leads me to link it to the Frank Slide which also was an unexpected altering of many different lives. While I can link these themes, I also believe that the Alberta Franklin is an allusion to the Frank Slide because the landslide took out many different colonist inventions (coal mines, etc.) Alberta is a strong Indigenous character that leads her classroom and I believe she defies colonist ideologies of First Nations people. By using her to allude to a strong landslide that took out colonist inventions, I think King is trying to make a statement. I also have spoken in a previous post about how she could be linked to the singer Aretha Franklin, which I will link here if you want to give it a read.

Coyote and the Four Indians

Around page 416, I found allusion relating to Coyote and the Four Indians: Lone Ranger, Ishmael, Robinson Crusoe, and Hawkeye.  Coyote has a conversation with these men that details the flood and Alberta’s unexpected pregnancy.
There is a moment at the beginning of page 416 where Coyote is denying his involvement with the earthquake: “I didn’t do it!” (King, 416). Robinson Crusoe then make an allusion to biblical story of Noah’s Ark and the flood: “The last time you fooled around like this the world got vert wet,” (King, 416.) Hawkeye affirms this when he adds, “and we had to start all over again” (King, 416). This sentiment alludes to the fact that Coyote is responsible for the flood, and in a way alludes that Coyote is God.

Jane Flick affirms my suspicions that Coyote is alluding to God when she speaks about the conception of Jesus Christ. Flick says that Jesus Christ’s conception is the work of Coyote rather than simply Mary conceiving on her own (Flick, 164). This can be seen within the page of 416 as well with the following moment:

“‘But I was helpful too. That woman who wanted a baby. Now that was helpful.’
‘Helpful!’ said Robinson Crusoe. ‘You remember the last time you did that?’…
‘We haven’t straightened out that mess yet,’ said Hawkeye.”
(King, 416).

When Coyote mentions the woman who wanted a baby, he is referring to Alberta. According to Flick, the reference to the “last time” this moment is alluding to Mary and the conception of Jesus Christ and the reference to “that mess” is alluding to Christianity as a religion (Flick, 164).

Dr. J Hovaugh & Oral Storytelling

While I won’t speak much here about Dr. Hovaugh, as I did on my last assignment, some new things have come up about his views of literature and his relation to a famous literary critic.
Dr. J Hovaugh alludes to Northrop Frye as they share the sentiments that literature is a singular, closed thing. This becomes clear in the moment when Hovaugh’s car is swept by the flood and all he has to say is about how it lines up with his book: “Dr. Hovaugh sagged against the bus, took out the book, and held it up. ‘It’s all here,’ he said to Babo. ‘I was right, after all.’” (King, 415).
Something about the above quote also affirms to me that Dr. Hovaugh is a God-like character, but not in the same way that Coyote is presented. Where I feel Coyote is a good character, I find that Hovaugh is not. He displays a superiority complex and God-like tendencies that, I believe, King uses to allude to the ways of colonizers that were trying to settle Indigenous lands. This God-like figure is affirmed through Flick’s notes: “He is the authority figure running the asylum (Babo’s “crazy hospital”) from which the Indians escape in Florida,” (Flick, 144).
This God-like nature is again reaffirmed by the orality of Dr. J Hovaugh’s name, as it sounds like Jehovah, the biblical figure (also a representation of King’s love for oral storytelling.)

These are all of the allusions that I have come up with so far.  This week has been absolutely crazy (as I’m sure it has been for a lot of you) and my anxieties have been at an all-time high. Therefore, I may reread when my mind settles and come back to this post in the next few days to add on some new allusions that I find.

Works Cited

Flick, Jane. “Reading Notes for Thomas King’s Green Grass Running Water.” Canadian  Literature 161-162. N.p., 1999. Web. 16 July 2016.
King, Thomas. Green Grass, Running Water. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1993. Print.