Identify and discuss two of King’s “acts of narrative decolonization.” Please read the following quote to assist you with your answer. The lives of King’s characters are entangled in and informed by both the colonial legacy in the Americas and the narratives that enact and enable colonial domination. King begins to extricate his characters’ lives from the domination of the invader’s discourses by weaving their stories into both Native American oral traditions and into revisions of some of the most damaging narratives of domination and conquest: European American origin stories and national myths, canonical literary texts, and popular culture texts such as John Wayne films. These revisions are acts of narrative decolonization. James Cox. “All This Water Imagery Must Mean Something.”
Throughout King’s story, the Blackfoot characters and their stories are often silenced/ignored by those who belong to a colonial legacy. By intertwining stories from Native American oral traditions with narratives that come from colonizers, King subverts the colonial domination and (re-)introduces readers to stories that have existed long before colonization. This act of narrative decolonization allows the Aboriginal voice to be audibly heard when the ‘oral syntax’ of the book makes the reader read out loud, but it also creatively changes the dominant colonial narratives so that the dichotomous nature of colonialism and othering gives way to stories that reconnect and heal.
Page 41. Out of the Christian story of the Garden of Eden, the character of First Woman subverts the notion that males are superior to females. When Adam is called to name creation, he gets it all wrong. Furthermore, the character of GOD, who is just a dog, is portrayed to be a very stingy dog. In contrast to the typical colonial creation story, the Aboriginal creation story of First Woman shows that she has agency, unlike Eve who many feel is a justification to treat women as inferior to men. Although I am a Christian, I recognize that a lot of damage has been done by the use of the Biblical creation story in order to colonize and subjugate those who do not believe in it, as well as disparage women because Eve supposedly brought sin into the world. King’s version instead shows First Woman doing as she pleases because she is part of who created the garden. It is her creation, not GOD’s, and certainly not that of the colonizers.
Page 270. First, we meet A.A. Gabriel who is the Archangel Gabriel. Gabriel tries to impose the Biblical story of the Virgin Mary on Thought Woman, but ultimately fails. Instead of having no say, Thought Woman can simply just refuse and walk away. Moreover, King takes the Canadian National Anthem and changes that one line so that it highlights the problem of colonialism that is embedded in nationalism. Indeed, Canada is “our home on Natives’ land”. Perhaps this is an uncomfortable truth, but even this small sentence is a start to changing the way we think about where we live and who we live with. The fact is, colonization was not a one time thing. It was a deliberate process that wanted to dispossess Aboriginal peoples of their rights and their lands. It is also ongoing. But King cleverly shows us that narrative decolonization is more powerful because it can unite perspectives that may once have been at odds with one another.
I recall when I read Green Grass, Running Water for ENGL 222, the professor asked if we thought Christians would be offended with this book. Personally, I do not believe King purposely intended to offend Christians. Instead, through the act of narrative decolonization, he has actually removed the “them versus us” mentality by making the readers evaluate how they perceive and tell stories. In this interview, King explains that he began writing this novel with “the assumption that Christian myth was the one that informed the world that [he] was working with”. However, this did not give him ample creative freedom. King thus weaves Native stories and Western stories together and pushes it through a “grinder … as Native culture’s been pushed through that sort of North American grinder” (68). It may be uncomfortable for some, but I believe that part of healing and coming together requires us to acknowledge problems first and work to find ways for coexistence and cooperation.
This TedxTalk focuses on decolonization by learning to really listen to each others’ stories. Olivia Rutazibwa explains that: “Decolonization is about what type of information is available for our mainstream societies. Secondly, it’s also not about political correctness. It’s not about silencing yourself … it’s the opposite. It’s the call to dig deeper … Whenever you feel silenced yourself, you or your group, or whoever you’re part of, that you step up and take it upon yourself to tell your story.” I think King has taken that step and allowed us to experience these great stories because of narrative decolonization.
Works Cited
King, Thomas. Green Grass, Running Water. Toronto: Harper Collins, 1993. Print.
King, Thomas. Interview with Peter Gzowski. Canadian Literature. n.d. Web. 7 Mar. 2015.
Tedx Talks. “TedxFlanders – Olivia U. Rutazibwa – Decoloniser.” Online video clip. YouTube. Youtube. 27 Sept. 2011. Web. 7 Mar. 2015.
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