Assignment: 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.

Hi all! I am very sorry that this blog is late. With everything going on, I just finished it today.  That being said, I am very excited to share it and greatly enjoyed writing it! The pages that I have chosen to discuss during Assignment 3:7 are pages 12-22. Picking up from a relatively random point in this book was an interesting approach to analyzing and researching the characters involved.  During this assignment, it was our responsibility to discover who the characters of Green Grass Running Water are, and what they symbolize in the first nations culture. First, I will discuss Ishmael, Lone Ranger, Hawkeye, and Robinson Crusoe.  These are the four Indians who escaped from Doctor Joseph Hovaugh’s mental institution. Next, I will discuss Dr. Joseph Hovaugh and Alberta Frank.  King uses a technique that portrays the four Indians telling a story, within the story of Green Grass Running Water. This section of pages begins with “A long time ago in a faraway land….” (King, 12). 

The Four Indians

Ishmael is, as mentioned by Jane Flick as the character that survives the destruction of the Pequod in Herman Melville’s American fiction novel, Moby Dick. During these 10 pages, Ishmael has minimal character development, chiming in occasionally to tell the Lone Ranger that “that’s the wrong story” (King, 14). The Lone Ranger consists of a similar history and personality traits across most fictions. The original Lone Ranger Character was John Reid, who was “born in 1850 and was the sole survivor of a group of Texas Rangers who were ambushed by outlaws” (Britannica). He is seen both historically and in King’s work as a heroic protagonist figure. In the pages that I have selected, the Lone Ranger is the trusted chosen character to tell the story. Lone Ranger begins telling his story in English, but the other three Indians better understood him when he began to speak their Native language (King, 15). Hawkeye is the third elder Indian in King’s intriguing novel about the middle ground between Native American tradition and the modern day world.   Jane Flick reminds us that Hawkeye is the nickname of James Fenimore Cooper’s Nathaniel Bummpo character. This creates an interesting symbol in King’s novel as Nathaniel Bummpo is the child of two white parents, unlike Native Indians. Similarly, Flick talks about Hawkeye being a “white woodsman and guide with knowledge of Indian ways” (141-42).  Robinson Crusoe is referred to as a “savage” by Jane Flick (142). He is an allusion to Defoe’s Hero, Robinson Crusoe,  a “shipwrecked mariner” that “survives through ingenuity and finds spiritual strength through adversity” (Flick, 142). His determination that led him to survival can be reflected into the Indians perseverance for recognition and freedom in the modern world. 

Dr. Joseph Hovaugh

The next two pages (17-18) go on to a dialogue between Dr. Joseph Hovaugh and his assistant, Mary. Mary exclaims that the Indians have gone missing again, and he is unalarmed, assuming why will return as they have before. I found it interesting that Mary described the four individuals as “the Indians” (17), as opposed to by their names. Dr. Joseph Hovaugh is a symbol of God in Green Grass Running Water. His name is a play on the name Jehovah, which is the name of God in the Hebrew Scriptures. King alludes to the authority and birds eye view that the Doctor has over the Indians in the institution. 

Alberta Frank

Following, King jumps to a classroom setting.  Alberta Frank is instructing a lesson about Fort Marion, which was an imprisonment camp for natives that seemed too large of a risk to be placed in residential schools. Richard Pratt was responsible for this decision and in a weak attempt to reduce boredom for these seventy-two individuals, “Pratt provided the men with drawing materials, ledger books, and colored pencils.” (King, 19) Instructor Alberta Frank’s name is not only an allusion to the province of Alberta but also to the town of Frank which had a large landslide that took place in 1903, known as Canada’s deadliest rockslide. 

Citations:

Admin. “The Fort Marion Prisoners.” Native American Netroots, 24 Feb. 2012, nativeamericannetroots.net/diary/1269.

“Frank Slide: Canada’s Deadliest Rockslide.” Frank Slide: Canada’s Deadliest Rockslide | The Canadian Encyclopedia, www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/frank-slide-feature.

“Green Grass Running Water.” Scribd, Scribd, www.scribd.com/doc/122180578/Green-Grass-Running-Water.

Lohnes, Kate, and Vybarr Cregan-Reid. “Moby Dick.” Encyclopædia Britannica, Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc., 13 Dec. 2018, www.britannica.com/topic/Moby-Dick-novel.

The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica. “Lone Ranger.” Encyclopædia Britannica, Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc., 7 June 2015, www.britannica.com/topic/Lone-Ranger.