3:3 Hyper Linking Green Grass and Running Water: Pages 31-34

I would like to begin with a summary of the events that take place within the pages that were assigned to me.

Summary
“Lionel had made only three mistakes in his entire life” and his first mistake was getting his tonsils out (King 30). These pages explain how Lionel, at the age of 8, was interested in getting his tonsils removed as an excuse to skip school. When he came down with a bad sore throat, Lionel was inclined to encourage the idea of having his tonsils removed. His mother takes him first to see Martha Old Crow, one of the local “doctors of choice” (King 31). However, Martha suggests that Lionel go see Dr. Loomis, the western doctor who came into town once a week, because no one had gone to see him last week. Dr. Loomis suggests that Lionel’s tonsils may need to be removed, while several people, including Charlie Looking Bear, watch. Charlie makes fun of the doctor. However, Lionel’s plan goes downhill when Dr. Loomis tells Lionel’s mother that Lionel could do the operation over the summer and therefore not have to miss any school. They take some time to consider, but as Lionel’s throat does not improve, he and his mother head to Calgary for the operation. Lionel is taken to the children’s hospital. His mother is staying at his aunt Jean’s house. A tall, blonde woman enters Lionel’s room, and asks if he is the lucky young man who is going to go on an airplane ride. Lionel, “liked playing these kinds of games” (King 34) and says yes. Lionel is flown out to Edmonton. Page 34 ends with Lionel being told that he is going to have a heart operation. Obviously there has been a terrible mistake.

Analysis
While several characters appear in this section, I am most interested in the critique that I believe that King is giving of the western medical profession. Therefore, I am going to focus my analysis on the doctors that appear in this section.

Dr. Loomis
• “Dr. Loomis was a skinny old man with a huge pile of white hair and eyes that looked as though they would pop out of his head. His tongue was inordinately long, and as he talked, he would run it around his face, catching the sides of his mouth and the bottom of his chin” (King 31).

• According to Flick, he is “an private joke” (Flick 146).

• When I googled Dr. Loomis, I found a number of hits relating to “Dr. Samuel Loomis” a character in the Halloween film series. I am not familiar with the series, but apparently Dr. Loomis is one of the primary protagonists who fights against serial killer Michael Myers.

• According to Wikipedia, Dr. Loomis’s name is a reference to the character Sam Loomis in the novel and film “Pyscho.” Sam Loomis was the boyfriend of Mary Crane, the young woman who has the misfortune, in the story, to stay at the Bates motel and subsequently be killed while in the shower. Sam Loomis helps to catch Mary’s killer, the ‘psycho’ Bates.

• When I googled “Loomis” the first thing that appeared was a link to Loomis Express a Canadian courier service. Just to double check that this connection was relevant, I checked how long Loomis Express has been in business for. According to their website, they have been around since 1905. The first thing I saw when I visited their homepage was a tagline that reads “Whatever your needs, Loomis delivers.” This struck me as extremely hilarious when considered in connection to what happens as a result of Dr. Loomis’s advice to go to Calgary and remove Lionel’s tonsils in King’s story, but somehow, oddly, it fit. Dr. Loomis is extremely sure of himself. He assures Lionel’s mother that her son is, “in the best of hands” and brags, “I studied in Toronto, you know” (King 31).

Martha Old Crow
• “A medicine woman, the “doctor of choice” for people on the Reserve. She also appears in King’s Medicine River” (Flick 146)

• The crow, in Native American tradition, is a spirit associated with magic and life mysteries. According to the “Spirit Animals and Animal Totems” website that I found, here are some of the meanings associated with crows:
-Life magic; mystery of creation
-Destiny, personal transformation, alchemy
-Intelligence
-Higher perspective
-Being fearless, audacious
-Flexibility, adaptability
-Trickster, manipulative, mischevious

• The allusions to magic and alchemy fit very well because we know that Martha is a medicine woman.

• Martha is not just a crow, she is an ‘old’ crow; and this suggests wisdom.

Jesse Many Guns
• The other “doctor of choice” (King 31).

• Perhaps an illusion to Jesse James
-Jesse James was an outlaw (1847-1882) and became a legendary symbol of defying authority in the wild west.
-The only connection that I can make here is that Jesse Many Guns’ name perhaps represents a disregard for western authority.

Critique of western medicine and westerners in general
The events that take place between p.31 and p.34 seem, to me, to be a critique of western medicine, and westerners in general. Dr. Loomis, a western outsider, is only given the opportunity to tend to Lionel because Martha Old Crow feels sorry for him. She suggest that Lionel go see him, because no one else has. “No one comes to see him last week. Maybe his feelings are hurt, that one” (King 31).

Here, we seem to have a modern account of a colonial event. A westerner enters the Native’s environment, thinks he knows better, tries to force his ways upon them and, ultimately, is made a fool of. Perhaps Dr. Loomis is not personally to responsible for the fiasco that takes place between pages 31 and 34, but everything that he represents, the degree from Toronto that he is so proud of, is undermined when the medical profession proceeds to make an unbelievable mess of what should have been a perfectly simple situation. It seems like most of the people in the Native community know better than to trust doctors like Loomis, for no one goes to see them, preferring Martha and Jesse, the “doctors of choice” (King 31). Norma criticizes Lionel’s mother for buying into western medicine. “Can’t believe my own sister let them do that to you. Got no more sense than a hubcap” (King 31).

WORKS CITED

“Bear Spirit Animal.” Spirit Animals & Totems. N.p., n.d. Web. 5th April 2014.

“Crow Spirit Animal.” Spirit Animals & Totems. N.p., n.d. Web. 5th April 2014.

“Jesse James.” Wikipedia. Wikipedia, n.d. Web 5th April 2014.

King, Thomas. Green Grass Running Water. Toronto: Harper Collins, 1993. Print.

Loomis Express. Loomis Express. Web. 4th April 2014.

“Sam Loomis.” Psycho Wikia. N.p, n.d. Web. 5th April, 2014.