Write a blog that hyper-links your research on the characters in GGRW according to the pages assigned to you. Be sure to make use of Jane Flick’s reference guide on your reading list.

I chose pages 162-165, 191-193, and 320-322 to research the influences of Western media and pop culture icons like John Wayne on characters such as Eli Stands Alone, Lionel Red Dog, and George, and the significance of the attempts to subvert the roles of the hero through John Wayne’s on-screen death.

Mystic Warrior / John Wayne 

An important symbol in GGRW is John Wayne, who most resembles the Mysterious Warrior that Bill Bursum roots for, as he “[clutches] his hands in his lap as if he was praying” (188). It is in this non-Native text that people like Bill Bursum, who only represents the interest of non-Native claims and the hostility of such as well (Flick, 21) treat the Western myth as the only true mythology to believe in, just as Christianity can be interpreted as a usurper of all other religions. Moreover, it is in the background of the Monument Valley where camera scenes of Western victory are played over and over again, where either Indians are regarded as savages or really, the antagonists of heroic cowboys. One good example that also refers to John Wayne is Stagecoach.

As a character reference, John Wayne was an actor who played in multiple roles of films that portray him as the individualistic hero. In pages 320-322, we see the dynamics of this role being reversed, or rather, as an attempt by the 4 Indians to fix the ‘mistake’ of representation, which is further tied to one of Lionel’s biggest past mistake in choosing John Wayne as his childhood idol (241). This decision probably led to further issues of identity, in the general aspect of meeting other people’s expectations through erasure or pretending, at an expense of his own culture or family tradition. Western media like John Wayne furthermore exploits the cultural narratives of First Nations people by imposing assumptions that simplify what it means to be “authentic”. King mentions in The Truth about Stories that for Natives, “this disjunction between reality and imagination is akin to life and death. For to be seen as ‘real,’ for people to ‘imagine’ us as Indians, we must be ‘authentic’” (54). Thus, Western media creates this mythical model of an authentic Indian, but to be seen as authentic they must “either conform to those external Stories or to have their Indian-ness erased entirely” (Bechtel, 212).    

Eli Stands Alone

“Trembling and alone, the woman, whose name was Annabelle, huddled on the ground waiting for death. But instead of being scalped as she had supposed, the Mysterious Warrior picked her up, put her on his horse beside him, and galloped away.

Eli got up and put a pot of water on. The light was beginning to fade. It was junk and he knew it, but he liked Westerns. It was like . . . eating potato chips.” (King, 162-163)

In context of the pages I chose, Eli’s narrative resembles that of a failed romance with Karen. Karen’s projections of him being her Mystic Warrior (King, 164) as well as her overall perceptions of Native American lifestyle is heavily influenced by Western media. When she finally visits Eli’s family and camp (recall that this is Eli remembering all these past details while he is reading a junkie romance), she says: “That’s beautiful. It’s like it’s right out of a movie” (203). Perhaps part of the failure resulted from Karen’s inability to understand Eli’s lonely dynamics as she viewed him like some cultural idol and not as a misrepresented identity. Eli falls into adapting various motivations, as one who refuses for the dam to be built–similar to Elijah Harper’s standout vote against the Manitoba legislature, and as someone caught in between due to his inability to reconcile with his family.

George Morningstar

George walks into Latisha’s home, one day, in a fringed leather jacket. I believe this is the first time we encounter the jacket, which the 4 Indians take later on in order to ‘induce’ some change in Lionel, which doesn’t even fit him comfortably and overall results in a George who is fed up because his film is confiscated during the Sun Dance (King, 387). In this sense, Morningstar’s lack of judgment was similar to George Custer: on the Battle of Bighorn in 1876, Custer dismisses the scout’s claim on the massive force of Indians, does not wait for reinforcements, and meets his own death.

In George’s character reference, Latisha mentions that what she found attractive in George was how his name was “slightly Indian” (King, 131), and how “he did not look like a cowboy or an Indian” (132).

“They belonged to one of my relatives. Now they belong to me.”

“Nice jacket,” Billy had told him.

“Damn right it is,” said George.

“Thought you just liked new things,” said Latisha, wiping down a table.

“It’s history,” said George, rolling his shoulders in the jacket. “Most old things are worthless. This is history.”

“Guess you got to know which is which.” (192).

The way that he shows Latisha the jacket indicates this aggressive need to feel not necessarily respected, but this demand to respect his judgment of materialistic things, despite them just being reflections off of trends as seen in John Wayne wearing such a jacket on the TV screen (193).When Latisha comments on George’s lack of understanding on his obsession with new things and sudden acknowledgment of history (though in his own terms), he ends up punishing her through physical abuse to not “ever do that again” (King, 192).

On TV, we see the patterns of the “cavalry [coming] over the hill and [killing] the Indians” (192), which Latisha deems to be the Western manner of how things are. This can be similar to the parallel experiences she has in dealing with George, in the sense that she and Eli may have been “continually caught up in a series of mistaken, harmful, and externally imposed Stories that literally restrict and control their lives” (Bechtel, 206).

John Wayne: Hero? (cont.)

Throughout the novel, John Wayne’s impact on the characters in GGRW has only shaped the damaging perceptions of not only how Westerners saw the Natives, but also how Natives saw themselves. It is implied that the 4 Indians tried to fix some mistake, but instead, the black and white film turns into color and John Wayne gets shot (King, 321-322). In this imaginary world/TV, the colorful aspects of reality also bleed through in the sense that Western and Native beliefs are contrasted. King does not emphasize the value of heroes, but “the individual narratives of community members,” whom “are more significant than any one narrative” (Gomez-Vega, 4). We see that John Wayne sheds blood in the Western world, to fulfill their myth. But through the 4 Old Indians, their creation stories, although different, still coexist in the sense that there is no one true story to live by, but the subjective truths of every being. While no one is able to challenge George Morningstar nor other supremacist non-Native Americans in the novel, the act of John Wayne’s death is a slight breaking point in literary context.

Works Cited

“25 years since Elijah Harper said ‘no’ to the Meech Lake Accord.” CBC News,  Mar 18, 2016. http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/manitoba/25-years-since-elijah-harper-said-no-to-the-meech-lake-accord-1.3110439.

“Old West.” History, A&E Television Networks, http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/indians-defeat-custer-at-little-big-horn.

Bechtel, Greg. “The Word for World Is Story: Syncretic Fantasy as Healing Ritual in Thomas King’s “Green Grass, Running Water”.” Journal of the Fantastic in the Arts,  Brian Attebery Editor, Vol. 19, No. 2 (73),  (2008), pp. 204-223. Jstor, http://www.jstor.org.ezproxy.library.ubc.ca/stable/24352453?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents.

Ebert, Roger. Review of Stagecoach, John Ford. RogerEbert.com, 1 Aug. 2011. http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/great-movie-stagecoach-1939.

Flick, Jane. “Reading Notes for Thomas King’s Green Grass, Running Water.” Canadian Literature 161/162 (1999), 25 October 2016. https://canlit.ca/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/canlit161-162-CoyoteFeeFlick.pdf.

Gómez-Vega, Ibis. “Subverting the ‘Mainstream’ Paradigm through Magical Realism in Thomas King’s ‘Green Grass, Running Water’.” The Journal of the Midwest Modern Language Association, Vol. 33, No. 1 (Winter, 2000), pp. 1-19. Jstor, https://www.jstor.org/stable/1315114?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents.

ICTMN Staff. “12 Movies Shot in Monument Valley on the Navajo Nation.” Indian Country Today Media Network, Indian Country Today Media Network, 28 Aug 2013, http://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com/2013/09/28/12-movies-shot-monument-valley-navajo-nation-151484.

Joseph, Bob. “The Enduring Nature Of First Nation Stereotypes.” Indigenous Corporate Training Inc., 14 Apr. 2015, http://www.ictinc.ca/blog/the-enduring-nature-of-first-nation-stereotypes.

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

Martinez, Mathew and San Juan, Pueblo. “All Indian Pueblo Council and the Bursum Bill.” New Mexico History, New Mexico History, http://newmexicohistory.org/people/all-indian-pueblo-council-and-the-bursum-bill.

Wagamese, Richard. “John Wayne rides again.” Windspeaker, The Aboriginal Multi-Media Society, Volume 8, Issue 11, 1990, http://www.ammsa.com/publications/windspeaker/john-wayne-rides-again.

4) 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.” Canadian Literature 161-162 (1999). Web April 04/2013.

“I got back as soon as I could,” says Coyote. “I was busy being a hero.”

“That’s unlikely,” I says.

“No, no,” says Coyote. “It’s the truth.”

“There are no truths, Coyote,” I says. “Only stories.”

“Okay,” says Coyote. “Tell me a story.” (King, 391)

There are many small instances in dialogue that King uses to point out a few things—in this case, the fact that Coyote claims to be playing the role of the hero can be related to the concept of Manifest Destiny and this entitlement that colonizers perceived that they could take matters to their own hands. While pop cultural and political references may have been the only things familiar to a Westernized mindset, we have to maneuver through foreign-like references we do not understand, such as the symbols of the Medicine Wheel, in order to read Green Grass Running Water and understand the plight of the First Nations characters. The idea that there are no truths and only stories is an interesting disclaimer, especially as King combines myth and stories together in an array of characters and worldly issues.

Moreover, “King repopulates their stories with First Nations characters whose presence replots doom as survival of, and resistance to, colonial violence and domination” (Cox, 220). In Green Grass Running Water, these characters (like Lionel and Eli) generally face this pattern of wanting to mask their identity (avoiding family) and yet ultimately are isolated from society as “The Indian who couldn’t go home” (King, 286). However, the audience is also displaced into their reality through intertextual struggles, as well as the stories of Coyote and the 4 Old Indians.

Two Acts of Narrative Decolonization:

1. Water Imagery + 4 Old Indians Trying to Fix Things.

“Where did the water come from?” Alberta, Patrolman Delano, Sergeant Cereno, and Lionel ask (98).

Throughout the novel, there is this constant imagery that all characters come across: water. Water can be seen overall as a spiritual cleansing and seeking of change. Just as the puddles are recognized by characters, so are their stories affected by the water imagery. The water imagery can be related to the 4 Old Indians who have been retelling certain stories in between the narratives of the characters they want to help, but keep making some sort of mistake that creates another layer of issues. The fact that there are walking myths that Dr. Hovaugh perceives as dangerous and something he personally wants to avoid tells a lot about the current narrative of decolonization where progress may feel stagnant. However, in the end, when the dam breaks, Sifton asks: “What the hell are [a Nissan, a Pinto, and a Karmann-Ghia] doing on my lake?” (407). This imagery gives the sense that all the issues addressed and referred to have overflowed and in return, this personified force is an unification of all the things left unaddressed in society, and yet have its own form of power in the book as water.

This aftermath is near the ending of the novel, but because it is implied that they keep trying to fix their mistakes, there is no beginning nor end when it comes to decolonization. Flick refers to Lee Maracle, who explains: “Most of our stories don’t have orthodox ‘conclusions’; that is left to the listeners, who we trust will draw useful lessons from the story—not necessarily the lessons we wish them to draw, but all conclusions are considered valid. The listeners are drawn into the dilemma and are expected at some point in their lives to actively work themselves out of it.” (11-12) Our imagination is supposed to run wild and our perceptions of images are supposed to transform throughout the novel, just as our reality does as we read the stories of these people. Fixing these narratives and preconceptions may take forever just as after you tell a story, it cannot be undone.

“Oops,”said the Lone Ranger. “I thought we fixed this one.”

“Yes,” said Ishmael, “I thought we did, too.”

“A lot of them look the same,” said Hawkeye.

“Boy,” said Robinson Crusoe, “this is sure a lot of work.” (King, 320)

The 4 Women in Native creation stories may resemble a metaphorical form of “walking ghosts” in which the pop cultural references that they represent (ex: First Woman as Lone Ranger) feel responsible for the actions of a past that keeps repeating itself. This mixture of stories and cultural symbols such as the Medicine Wheel, exist without explanation in the novel, and reveal the flaws of what is believed to be true in our settler’s consciousness—where we come across this border of reality and fiction and close the gap between our own perceptions of First Nations people (through television and media) and how we originally see things. One form of misunderstood dialogue between characters can lead to an unraveling story that transforms continuously throughout the book, and it is this overall form of decolonization that King seeks to re-identify in his characters.

2. Myth + Mundane → Noah and Changing Woman

In the end, it is suggested that to fix everything again they “could start in the garden” (428). The constant entanglements with Christian doctrine brings a lot of irony, because the garden is where Adam and Eve became sinners (how evil started in the human world). When Changing Woman meets Noah and the Ark, he constantly repeats how there are “Christian rules” and that if she does not procreate with him, and follow these rules (talking to animals is bestiality apparently) then she will ultimately be kicked out of the ship. Ironically, one interpretation in the link is that it refers to a “wet” holocaust and how God also failed to ‘cleanse’ the world.

Nonetheless, Noah’s character is one of many (God, Dog Dream, and Young Man Walking on Water) who feel that they are entitled to whatever they wish. Moreover, because in the bible story Eve had been blamed for the downfall of humanity, Noah was at first suspicious of the woman appearing on his ship. Cox mentions that “to emphasize the male attempt to dominate European/Euro-pean North American culture, the Noah of King’s novel invokes patriarchal privilege to assign blame to Eve for this destruction, too” (228). He objectifies her body to fulfill his desires, makes his rules an ultimatum and her eventual departure a punishment, and does not understand consent but only procreation as he chases her around. Moreover, all of his actions were declared under being a Christian.

This mindset is also a reference to the entitlement that colonizers originally had, except in King’s novel, God is not the true creator in power and only some “Dog Dream” who claims to be. It is also important to note that the gender roles are subverted and yet despite these women representing Hawkeye, Lone Ranger, Ishmael, and Robinson Crusoe, their true intentions are devalued in the eyes of biblical characters, Hovaugh, etc.

One overarching reference is the phrase “as long as the grass is green and the waters run” (King, 267), which is quoted here (search: second word of bitterness, speech in bold) where President Jackson sent an army major to talk to the Choctaws and Cherokees in moving them to another place, to which they provide a speech. I think that despite land settlements, the depiction of nature imagery and First Nations issues still coexist and is part of our reality (that some may not be willing to face). Ultimately, the book title speaks of the narrative of First Nations people today and in the continuous attempts of decolonization.

Works Cited:

“Noah And The Flood An Ironic Allegory.” 1 In Faith: A Christian Bible Study, Robert Traer, 2000, http://christian-bible.com/Worship/Sermons/noah.flood.htm.

Cox, James. “All This Water Imagery Must Mean Something”: Thomas King’s Revisions of Narratives of Domination and Conquest in “Green Grass, Running Water.” American Indian Quarterly, Vol. 24, No. 2, Spring 2000, pp. 219-246 (28). University of Nebraska Press, http://www.jstor.org.ezproxy.library.ubc.ca/stable/1185872.

Fee, Margery and Jane Flick. “Coyote Pedagogy Knowing Where the Borders Are in Thomas King’s Green Grass, Running Water.” Canadian Literature, 161/162, 0008-4360, 1 July 1999, 131, https://canlit.ca/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/canlit161-162-CoyoteFeeFlick.pdf.

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

Michaud, Rony. Pixabay, 28 Dec. 2014, https://pixabay.com/p-578897/?no_redirect.

Zinn, Howard. “Chapter 7: As Long as Grass Grows or Water Runs.” A People’s History Of The United States, New York, HarperCollins, 2003, 259.

In her article, “Green Grass, Running Water: Theorizing the World of the Novel,” Blanca Chester observes that “the 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’s literary influence on King was, as King himself says, “inspirational.” When one reads King’s earlier novel, Medicine River, and compares it with Green Grass, Running Water, Robinson’s impact is obvious. Changes in the style of the dialogue, including the way King’s 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’s storied impact. (46)

For this blog assignment I would like you to make some comparisons between Harry Robinson’s writing style in “Coyote Makes a Deal with the King Of England” and King’s 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?

“For a long time, Coyote was there
On the water, sitting on that boat.
And he eat right there.
And then they got a fire.
And the fire, they never go out.
They still burnin’ just like it was when they first set the fire.
It’s that way all the time.
And, been there a long time, just like they put him in jail.
They still there.” (King, 64)

Conceptually and structurally, Robinson and King’s storytelling methods can be considered similar. In the introduction to “Coyote Makes a Deal with the King of England”, King sets the story in motion with this notion that whatever happened is still happening, the fire is burning just like the first time it was set. This image is parallel to the image of the Four Indians in Green Grass and Running Water, who are in the contemporary world and are trying to fix things, but their attempts only cause more issues. That important task that needs to be done, is still ‘being done’. Both King and Robinson have similar purposes on establishing this permanent existence of First Nations issues, whether it be in the form of the Black and White, or the Four Indians.

On the other hand, both writers emphasize different aspects: Robinson continues executing choppy lines and informal dialogue that causes us to slow our thoughts down, while King has Coyote pose questions between traveling through time and situations with characters, almost as part of the reader’s audience. Yet, in similar ways, we are constantly working to understand these stories that are thrown around in present tense. It is this skillful sense of constancy (of how life is never ending nor beginning and how literature mimics such) in oral narratives, that seeks a response from the readers. Both writers create a motion in their words and this echo of past meeting present–Robinson, in repetition of the law/agreement between the King of England and Coyote, and King, in his occasional reference to the image of puddles, and water rising, as Lionel’s past mistakes resurfacing.

Robinson’s character of God is rather simple in which God commands and gives Coyote a power for an important task. God is seen as this all-powerful, all knowing being, yet his own actions don’t show regard for the people on Earth. The dialogue between the King of England and Coyote tells more of a story of distrust and politics, but as this story is not as stretched out, there are not as many plot details to examine here. However, both texts suggest a hint of skepticism toward the Christian God.

On God and Coyote, King further provides more context that satirically deals with Christian influences. He “reverses [the renaming of First Nations individuals with familiar Christian names by] renaming Christ as Young Man Walking on Water” (Flick, 270). Moreover, in King’s interview at the end of the book, he mentions that “there is a certain meanness and arrogance in religion, and in society in general, that prevails… Religion is this way because it is run by humans, created by humans and inhabited by humans” and says that “[he tends] to look for those imperfections” and is “not a person full of faith” (5). While there is this implication that Coyote is supposed to be an impulsive and difficult to understand or interpret “god”, in King’s story, he is not only a trickster but a complex, omniscient time traveler. He tells the ‘wrong’ stories by mentioning soldiers who “have flowers in their hair” (324), seems to call upon a storm (273), and is seen as this “yellow dog dancing in the rain” (279). In the many questions he asks, sometimes he gives the right observation, and sometimes he just gets it all wrong. Not to mention that it was implied he was involved in Alberta’s pregnancy, we don’t know where to start in understanding who he is. Does this bring perspective into King’s opinion on faith and religion especially in the manner which Solnit (who brings a personal account as well) says that “perfect is not only the enemy of the good; it’s also the enemy of the realistic, the possible, and the fun” ? How is Coyote portrayed similarly yet differently from the Christian God?

While there is no explicit Christian God in King’s novel, the concept is contrasted nonetheless. And while King may have been inspired with Robinson’s storytelling voice, he also brings into account many other aspects to the realm of literature and reality. We learn through both writers’ dialogues the projections and influences of complex characters such as that of Coyote and God.

Works Cited

Flick, Jane. “Reading Notes for Thomas King’s Green Grass, Running Water.” Canadian Literature 161/162 (1999). Web. 25 October 2016.

Giffen Sheila, Kathryn Grafton, Laura Moss. “Challenges of Textualizing Orature.” CanLit Guides, The University of British Columbia, 19 Aug. 2016, http://canlitguides.ca/canlit-guides-editorial-team/orature-and-literature/challenges-of-textualizing-orature/.   

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

Mallette, Linnaea. “Beware Of Coyotes Sign.” PublicDomainPictures.net, http://www.publicdomainpictures.net/view-image.php?image=110922&picture=beware-of-coyotes-sign.

Robinson, Harry. “Coyote Makes a Deal with the King Of England.” Living by Stories: a Journey of Landscape and Memory. Ed. Wendy Wickwire. Vancouver: Talonbooks, 2005. 64-85.