{"id":81,"date":"2019-02-28T20:48:16","date_gmt":"2019-03-01T03:48:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/golgiapp\/?p=81"},"modified":"2019-03-05T01:40:52","modified_gmt":"2019-03-05T08:40:52","slug":"coyote-vs-god","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/golgiapp\/2019\/02\/28\/coyote-vs-god\/","title":{"rendered":"3.2 Coyote VS God"},"content":{"rendered":"

Prompt:<\/span><\/i>
\n<\/span><\/i>5.\u00a0 In her article, \u201cGreen Grass, Running Water: Theorizing the World of the Novel,\u201d Blanca Chester observes that \u201cthe conversation that King sets up between oral creation story, biblical story, literary story, and historical story resembles the dialogues that Robinson sets up in his storytelling performances (47). She writes:<\/span><\/i>
\n<\/span><\/i>
\n<\/span><\/i>Robinson\u2019s literary influence on King was, as King himself says, \u201cinspirational.\u201d When one reads King\u2019s earlier novel, Medicine River, and compares it with Green Grass, Running Water, Robinson\u2019s impact is obvious. Changes in the style of the dialogue, including the way King\u2019s narrator seems to address readers and characters directly (using the first person), in the way traditional characters and stories from Native cultures (particularly Coyote) are adapted, and especially in the way that each of the distinct narrative strands in the novel contains and interconnects with every other, reflect Robinson\u2019s storied impact. (46)<\/span><\/i>
\n<\/span><\/i>
\n<\/span><\/i>For this blog assignment I would like you to make some comparisons between Harry Robson\u2019s writing style in \u201cCoyote Makes a Deal with the King Of England\u201d and King\u2019s style in Green Grass, Running Water. What similarities can you find between the two story-telling voices? Coyote and God are present in both texts, how do they compare in character and voice across the stories?<\/span><\/i>
\n<\/span>
\n<\/span> I thought this would be a good thing to discuss because of my main interests laying in writers and how they create the effects they desire in their work. I\u2019ve also been writing quite a bit for this course on King\u2019s works and my last post was discussing Robinson\u2019s techniques, it seemed like an obvious choice.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n


\n<\/span> From just a simple glance, you can notice graphological similarities in both works. Neither of them looks like a <\/span>conventional <\/span><\/i>novel, as it takes on the appearance similar to a script. As I\u2019ve talked about it in my last post, Robinson places a line break at the end of each sentence, and although they look similar, King\u2019s work doesn\u2019t abide by such rules. In King\u2019s work, these line breaks occur conventionally at the end of usual paragraphs, however, the reason it still looks similar is due to the amount of dialogue there is within this book. In fact, the majority of the book is a dialogue between two or more characters, usually exchanging short sentences. The effect of this is a bit similar in both stories, as it keeps the story full of voices, rather than prose.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

The narrator is a character in both stories, although neither narrators take part within the story itself. Of course, in King\u2019s novel, the narrator does interact with Dog God and Coyote, he still mostly serves as the observer of what\u2019s happening. Both the characters will often share opinions with the readers and at times, address them directly. This creates the effect of the readers feeling like they have a more personal stake to the story, rather than just a passer-by that happened to look upon the story.<\/span>
\n<\/span> Green Grass, Running Water <\/span><\/i>is especially interesting because it utilizes different styles depending on which character we are focusing on. When we are with Coyote, the narrative style consists of a lot of repetitions, and conversational language, to no surprise, like Robinson\u2019s story about Coyote. When focusing on the tribal elders telling their origin story, the style is also different with unusually short lines, and barebones prose. Then, while telling the stories of other characters, the story feels more akin to <\/span>a normal <\/span><\/i>novel with a bit more prose accompanying the dialogues. These changes display different storytelling styles, exemplifying the theme of differences in stories that are all equally true. Another effect this has is to ease the readers into the perspective switches, as King tend to jump around quite abruptly.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Coyote and God are presented in both stories in a similar way. For both of them, God attempts to order around Coyote, which Coyote ends up trying to satisfy with some reluctance. They don\u2019t have a very close relationship, and if given the choice, Coyote would like to be left alone, but their companionship is inevitably tied together. Both stories present Coyote as a lover of sleep and a trickster, while God being a forceful character who desires things to be completed as soon as possible. These characters are therefore forced to find a compromise between the two people, but rather than working together, they work to deceive the other party and neither are happy for it. These themes in both stories at the end bleed into the real world, as we see Robinson\u2019s story ending with the narrator sharing his thoughts on the land disputes, and in King\u2019s story the dam being forcefully built in the reserves end up coming down due to an earthquake.<\/span><\/p>\n

I found it interesting that both of these authors chose the coyote to represent Native Americans in these stories, as there are many other choices for characters within their history. Although he is amongst the most popular characters, I don\u2019t think this was the main reason for their choice. Coyote, the character, was often used as a moral to teach about those who are willing to deceive to get what they want. They are also shown to be quite human, creative, giving into vices, unpredictable, and possible of both good and evil<\/a>. I think partly, this is why both authors decided to utilize the coyote, as it is a creator of sorts that offer itself as an interesting foil to the Judeo-Christian God who is serious, blunt, \u201cperfect\u201d, and overall inhumane<\/a>.
\n<\/span>
\n<\/span> Why do you think both authors chose the Coyote? Or do you have any other thoughts about these stories? Let me know!<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Citations<\/span><\/p>\n

CrashCourse. \u201cCoyote and Raven, American Tricksters: Crash Course World Mythology #22.\u201d\u00a0Youtube<\/i>, 12 Aug. 2017, www.youtube.com\/watch?v=eAKHGe6x8n8.<\/span><\/p>\n

Hauser, Elyse. \u201cGreek Mythology and the Judeo-Christian God.\u201d\u00a0Sensible Reason<\/i>, 22 Nov. 2014, sensiblereason.com\/greek-mythology-judeo-christian-god\/.<\/span><\/p>\n

Robinson, Harry.\u00a0Living by Stories: a Journey of Landscape and Memory.<\/i>\u00a0Ed. Wendy Wickwire. Vancouver: Talonbooks, 2005. Print.<\/span><\/p>\n

King, Thomas.\u00a0Green Grass Running Water<\/i>. Toronto: Harper Collins, 1993. Print.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Prompt: 5.\u00a0 In her article, \u201cGreen Grass, Running Water: Theorizing the World of the Novel,\u201d Blanca Chester observes that \u201cthe conversation that King sets up between oral creation story, biblical story, literary story, and historical story resembles the dialogues that Robinson sets up in his storytelling performances (47). She writes: Robinson\u2019s literary influence on King […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":63068,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-81","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/golgiapp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/golgiapp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/golgiapp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/golgiapp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/63068"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/golgiapp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=81"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/golgiapp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":89,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/golgiapp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81\/revisions\/89"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/golgiapp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=81"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/golgiapp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=81"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/golgiapp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=81"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}