I’ve been given the task of analyzing, finding connections, and weeding out the interesting links in pages 189-200 in Green Grass Running Water. To start I want to point out that before taking this course, I didn’t even know what a hyperlink was, nor how to even create one. After researching on Google and playing with the blog a little, I slowly but surely figured it out. However, now that we have to do an entire hypertexting blog I feel a little overwhelmed and I’m connecting with that feeling I had at the beginning of this course. So hopefully this goes smoother than I am anticipating. I am going to try and write this as if a reader could understand what was going on in these 11 pages if they were just opening up the book at the point and starting to read. Here I go with all the allusions King sets out for us.
First my pages open with Latisha’s family, which include, Christian, Benjamin and Elizabeth. Latisha is home late from work and Christian makes dinner for their family, however the mean isn’t gourmet by any means. It is important for readers to note that Latisha owns the “Dead Dog Café” and lives in a Blackfoot Native American community in Alberta. This is just a general back-story to know why Latisha get’s home late, working as a single mom. The conversation starts to gear into Latisha’s past with her ex-husband George. Latisha opens up about George, her former abusive ex-husband and goes into an example of him showing up at the café in a John Wayne leather jacket with a fringe. Latisha’s response wasn’t to George’s liking and when she got home from work, George gave her a beating, while he repeated, “don’t you ever do that again”(King 192).

After Latisha’s memory is over, Christian, her son asks her about a Western they are watching: “How come the Indians always get killed?”(193). Latisha’s response is quite eye opening, she says: “If the Indians won, it probably wouldn’t be a Western”(193).

The next story within my assigned texts begins with Coyote and an unknown narrative, which leads you to believe the narrator, is King. They tell part of a story, which has been told throughout the book, about Ahab, the Changing Woman, and a man named Ishmael. This is brief I know, but I have to get into my analysis.

The third story, with less emphasis in my assigned reading tells a tale about Eli and Karen, a young couple with issues about meeting Eli’s parents.
I’ve chosen to focus mainly on Latisha and Ishmael because I found the most connections with other references. King uses a ton of humor within his writing and to be honest, I found the connections extremely overwhelming because there is so much to cover.

However, for the purpose of this assignment I am going to narrow it down.

Significance of Names

Ishmael has got to be one of the most famous characters in writing from in presence in Moby Dick. His opening line in Moby Dick is “Call me Ishmael”, which King uses on page 197. King’s references to water, re-birth characters throughout the novel and in particular this scene is something to look at. His connection with Moby-Dick is not simply because the four Native men are trying to capture whales, but because King plays a certain kind of spin on the White Man’s ideas of wealth. In particular, he says, “ This is a Christian world, you know. We only kill things that are useful or things we don’t like”(196).
King bashes Christianity in a way that most readers would not consider offensive because at the time a lot of people would’ve found this statement to be true. Although a rude comment, his human prevails and takes this comment from a negative and offensive, to hilarious, true, and really opens our eyes.

Changing Woman is significant because the Changing Woman turns in Ishmael. She was a significant timeless woman that turned into one of the four Indian men in the story. I believe this is interesting to note because of the evolution of the story. These two turn into one another and I think this is a strong tie to Native stories within King’s writing, without explicitly saying that they are linked.

Ahab is the leader of the whale hunt and has his eye out for the White Whale. Some could call it an obsession. He has a very emotional tie with his White Whale obsession. When Ahab chants out “whalesbians”, what is he trying to get at? Is this somehow pointing fun at Western identities? Or maybe Ahab is confused and this is a way of expressing his confusion? I can’t help but think that King is somehow point at something within Western culture. Ahab is so attracted to this “big White Whale”, yet he is chanting about lesbian whales.

John Wayne: I included John Wayne because his name was closely tied to the jacket in which George wore before he beat Latisha. He was the classic American film Westerner, maybe like the Bradley Cooper of the Hangover today? That may be a far stretch. Anyways he was known as “The Cowboy” that versed “The Indians”. All of American knows who he is; he is referenced in numerous movies, television shows, and a lot of music.

Latisha: Latisha is a unique name, not as common, not as “white” as the common names. In my opinion from the reading, I see Latisha as a female that represents the majority of Native women within their households. Latisha is hard working, passionate, and vulnerable. I could be completely off base here but it was an important part of my analysis.

Moby-Jane: A female whale, in comparison to Moby Dick. This whale signifies the female presence in the world and demonstrates her ability to take charge. Changing Woman was immediately drawn to her and didn’t see her as evil, yet she saw her as comforting.

Coyote:  Of course Coyote needs to be mentioned. Coyote’s presence occurs throughout the entire text because he is a First Nations presence. He has the ability to cross cultural boundaries and enhance readers opinions, give them more answers, and be the common light in all of our readings. I really liked how Coyote could transport back and forth and totally fit into any story. He has the ability to connect with every story and he always had something to say. I found him to be a First Nations presence, written in a Western-like way.  I say that because I felt like he took on the role of both sides within the text and never really chose a “side”.

The most significant term I found within my reading was:

One

I was immediately drawn in to Latisha’s description of George’s reasoning that he had so many jobs. He was always looking for “the one”(190). The emphasis on the right one seems to involve something being perfect for any occasion, perfect for the person, and completely right for the circumstance. I am emphasizing on the term “one” here because I think King used in strategically to point out the lack of unity within the Western world. Green Grass Running Water is all about mixing Native content with the Western world. It points out Western flaw, takes a Judeo-Christian approach, and always tries to intermingle both lifestyles. I am sure we are all aware of the saying “How The West Was One”. I think this was a big ideal that King wanted to prove false and he demonstrated it perfectly with the text. The term “one” means unity, identity, and togetherness. However, it can also mean an individual, a single person, and an idea, just a single idea. I think that was the “one” he was getting at within the text. Not so much unity with the Western World and the Native world, but the Westerner’s way of making the world all about them, as if the Native’s were guests in their own homes.

There is so much I can say about these 11 pages and I found this extremely difficult to write. I had a lot of thoughts that I just couldn’t get down on paper because this is assignment really made my mind wonder, which I hope was the purpose. Please feel free to agree or disagree. I am sure there are many perspectives on these stories, such as our own creations stories.

Happy Reading!

Jessica R

Works Cited

Andrews, Jennifer. “Border Trickery and Dog Bones: A Conversation with Thomas King”. SCL Interview. 1999. Web. 13 Mar 2015.

Cox, James H. “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. 200. Web. 12 Mar 15.

“Green Grass Running Water”. Perennial Canada Reading Group Guide”. Harper Collins Publishers. Web. 12 Mar 2015.

“Ishmael.” Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Wikimedia Foundation, Inc, n.d. Web. 12 Mar. 2015.

“John Wayne.” Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. Web. 12 Mar. 2015.

King, Thomas. Green Grass, Running Water. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1993. Print.

Lutz, John. “First Contact as a Spiritual Performance: Aboriginal — Non-Aboriginal Encounters on the North American West Coast.” Myth and Memory: Rethinking Stories of Indigenous-European Contact. Ed. Lutz. Vancouver: U of British Columbia P, 2007. 30-45. Print

“One”. The Oxford English Dictionary. University Press. Web. 12 Mar 2015.

Smith, Carlton. “Coyote, Contingency, and Community: Thomas King’s Green Grass, Running Water” and Postmordern Trickster”. American Indian Quartlerly. 1997. Web. 12 Mar 2015.

Walker, Peter, A. “How the West was one: American environmentalists, farmers and ranchers learn to say ‘Howdy, Partner”. Outlook on Agriculture. Web. 12 Mar 2015.

What are the major differences or similarities between the ethos of the creation story you are familiar with and the story King tells in The Truth About Stories?

First off I chose this question because I was so intrigued by it’s hidden complexity. I actually had to look up and research the definition of ethos because I was a little confused of the context it’s used in here. However, after researching I was enlightened by the question even more. When I looked up the definition of ethos in The Oxford English Dictionary, I found the first two definitions to be the most useful for this assignment. The first defines ethos as a “character or characterization as revealed in action or its representation; the quality of the permanent, as opposed to the transient or emotional”(OED). The second, defines ethos as “the characteristic spirit of a people, community, culture, or era as manifested in its attitudes and aspirations; the prevailing character of an institution or system”(OED). I also found this article a very interesting read because it focused on the patterns of ethos and its comparisons to personality traits. My understanding of ethos is to enhance a reader’s knowledge of a particular story and to give it a credible history. Ethos should help a reader understand the story and persuade them into believe that a story is real or true based on the way it’s told and the characterization within the story. I think this is important to remember when comparing and contrasting the story of creation that I was told as a child and the story that King told us in The Truth About Stories.

While comparing the creation story I was told and King’s version, I found the ethos to be very different. I found my creation story to be straight to the facts, with little to no room for readers to express emotion or general feelings towards a particular character in the story. However, with King’s story I found the ethos within the story to really engage with me as a reader. I found my emotions and feelings towards the story more engaging than I did when I was told the creation story I grew up with strictly based on the content of the story. King tells his story, as he mentions, in a Native story-telling way, which provokes emotions, plays with human interaction, and gets a reader’s mind thinking. King tells the story with overwhelming emotion, you almost feel like he is reading the story aloud to you, even though you are reading the story from the text. The way in which he tells the story makes it come alive.

In comparison to the creation story I was told, the Adam and Eve bible version, ethos did not play a large part in the actual story itself. This story was driven from facts from the Bible and was told in a manor that reiterated what the Bible had said. However, when I was younger my parent’s put a lot of effort into story telling and I feel that they almost told the story to me in a way comparable to King, even though the context differed, the way in which it was told was similar. My parent’s made a habit of exaggerating everything, from us finishing the food on our plates at dinner; to the stories they told us before bed. The Adam and Eve creation story was no differ and I believe I was lucky to have been exposed to this type of story telling. The ethos in my parent’s version and King’s version were definitely more similar than they were different.
Of course, the content of each story differs and it will differ to each and every individual. Even though some of us may have grown up with the same creations stories, most likely the way in which they were told differ in some type of way. I believe that we are all lucky to have had our different exposures because we are now able to create our own versions of stories, which may mimic or be polar-opposite to the ones we were once told.

Here was a neat little cartoon that displayed the same amount of confusion I had for ethos when I first looked it up!
Works Cited

“Ethos, Logos, Pathos”. Youtube. 2001. Web. 8 Mar 2015.
McCrae, Robert R. Personality Profiles of Cultures: Patterns of Ethos. Laboratory of Personality and Cognition, National Institute on Aging, National Institutes of Health and Human Services. 2009. 8 Mar 2015.

The Oxford English Dictionary Online. The Oxford University Press. 2015. 8 Mar 2015.

2] In this lesson I say that it should be clear that the discourse on nationalism is also about ethnicity and ideologies of “race.” If you trace the historical overview of nationalism in Canada in the CanLit guide, you will find many examples of state legislation and policies that excluded and discriminated against certain peoples based on ideas about racial inferiority and capacities to assimilate. – and in turn, state legislation and policies that worked to try to rectify early policies of exclusion and racial discrimination. As the guide points out, the nation is an imagined community, whereas the state is a “governed group of people.” For this blog assignment, I would like you to research and summarize one of the state or governing activities, such as The Royal Proclamation 1763, the Indian Act 1876, Immigration Act 1910, or the Multiculturalism Act 1989 – you choose the legislation or policy or commission you find most interesting. Write a blog about your findings and in your conclusion comment on whether or not your findings support Coleman’s argument about the project of white civility.

The Immigration Act of 1910 was an act that the Canadian government established to control the intake of immigrants that were allowed to enter Canada. This act reinforced and expanded upon The Immigration Act of 1906. If we were to go a little off topic to understand the comparison of The Immigration Act of 1910 and The Immigration Act of 1906, we could compare it to our modern day Education Act, which the BC Liberals found to please society by taking an act that was rebelled against when released, and fine tuning and changing the words of their document, but not the meaning. We can compare a similar standpoint of The Immigration Acts, because the Canadian government did not change the meaning of their actions to cater to society, they took four years and reinforced more “white man power”.

Although the new act did allow for immigrants to obtain “permanent resident status” if they have been a residing within Canada for more than three years, the act was still discriminatory. The immigration board was given the authority to pick and choose whom they thought were fit for residency and not allow any person who resembled negative characteristics such as pimping or prostitution. To add to the negative side of The Immigration Act of 1910, Asian immigrants needed to have a specific amount of money in their possession before they were allowed to enter the country, 200 dollars to be exact. This was necessary before they could receive permanent entry, or even be considered.

Not only did The Immigration Act discriminate based on equity, it gave Orders in Council the ability to turn away immigrants who did not fit the mold that they were looking for. By mold, I’m referring to the clean looking race that looks presentable, has money, and will not harm there environment of there image. The overall act was made by the typical “white man”, who wanted to make a profit out of people moving to Canada, yet still maintain an image of high-status and “peace”.

I believe The Immigration Act of 1910 does follow the project of white civility because The Immigration Act of 1910 still encompasses an ideal image of what the nation of Canada should look like. The Act attempted to create multiculturalism in a reverse manor by hand picking that could or couldn’t enter the country. The Immigration Act of 1910 falls short of any expectations I had for Canada. While studying and reading up on the act, I found myself furious at former Canada leaders, and even more furious and our Canada government now than ever before (I just did a project on the recent teacher’s strike). I know the comparison is a little off, however I think it shows a true example about how people in power are not at eye level of what is current in society and how the need for an ideal image and reflect horribly on people in power.

-Jessica

Works Cited

Government of Canada. Immigration & Citizenship. 2015. Web. 24 Feb 2015.

“Immigration Act, 1910″. Canadian Museum of Immigration at Pier 21. Canada. Government of Canada. 1910. Web. 26 Feb. 2015.

Sánchez-Alonso, Blanca. Making sense of immigration policy. The Economic history review. 2013. Web. 24 Feb 2015.

1] In his article, “Godzilla vs. Post-Colonial,” King discusses Robinson’s collection of stories. King explains that while the stories are written in English, “the patterns, metaphors, structures as well as the themes and characters come primarily from oral literature.” More than this, Robinson, he says “develops what we might want to call an oral syntax that defeats reader’s efforts to read the stories silently to themselves, a syntax that encourages readers to read aloud” and in so doing, “recreating at once the storyteller and the performance” (186). Read “Coyote Makes a Deal with King of England”, in Living by Stories. Read it silently, read it out loud, read it to a friend, and have a friend read it to you. See if you can discover how this oral syntax works to shape meaning for the story by shaping your reading and listening of the story. Write a blog about this reading/listening experience that provides references to the story.

Let me tell you, after reading and rereading “Coyote Makes A Deal with King of England” my mind was blown. I was significantly surprised how I didn’t take note of the way the story was written the first time around when I was skimming the story. After noticing that there was a blog question about Robinson’s story, I had a closer look at the story and I was significantly surprised how much the oral syntax made a difference in the way I interpreted the story. A few questions came to mind while I was doing a close reading. Firstly, who is telling us this story? Is it a child? Is it someone who is learning English as a second language? Secondly, why are there so many spelling mistakes in a professionally published book? Lastly, why is the story formatted the way it is?

At first, when I read the story aloud, I found myself going back to a line I thought I skipped because the line that followed, didn’t make sense. I found myself constantly rereading and correcting what I had said before to make the story make sense. However, when I read the story allowed to myself, I didn’t correct myself as much as I did when I was just reading the story, in my head, to myself. The oral syntax of the story seemed to provoke my thought process when I was reading the story aloud. So as an experiment, I tried to reread the story to myself, quietly without speaking aloud to myself. It didn’t work. I was so inclined to speak out loud when something didn’t read right in my head, that my voice projected itself without me even thinking I wanted to speak aloud. It was as if I trying to keep quiet but something in the story wasn’t letting me.

I think Robinson was clever while writing this because the whole story plays with oral syntax. It is a story that needs to be read aloud and makes sense read aloud. When read aloud, the grammar errors, spelling mistakes, and the tone are all corrected, and make sense in the way that it’s told. Regardless if we read aloud a line such as “And he eat right there”(Robinson 64), it makes sense when said aloud. Grammatically our minds are telling us this is wrong because of what we had learned in school, but our voice as storytellers is telling us that we are correct.

My mom read the story aloud to me and she shook her head a few times and some of the sentences, but they still made sense. However, I was confused as to who the speaker was supposed to be. At first, I thought it was a child telling a story they had heard from one of their parents but then it made sense that this was someone who was a non-native speaker of the English language. That’s the way I read it because of the grammatical issues within the story. However, are these grammatical issues strategically placed for us to recognize the power of oral syntax?

I had a few thoughts regarding how the story was interpreted whether it was read to yourself by yourself aloud or to yourself by someone else aloud. What was more powerful? Were they both interpreted the same? The power of story telling, whether it is perfectly prepared, or put together with simple academic mistakes, somehow it all seems to make perfect sense.

Here’s a really cool TED Talk I found regarding how stories are told and the power of just one story. If you have time, it’s really worth it.

-Jessica

Works Cited
“Chimamanda: The Danger of a Simple Story”. Youtube. 2010. Web. 11 Feb 2015.

McDonnell Harris, Mary. Oral and Written Syntax Attainment of Second Graders. National Council of Teachers of English. 1997. Web. 11 Feb 2015.

Robinson, Harry. Living by Stories: a Journey of Landscape and Memory. Ed. Wendy Wickwire. Vancouver: Talonbooks, 2005. Print.

Questions 1)
So, why does King create dichotomies for us to examine these two creation stories? Why does he emphasize the believability of one story over the other — as he says, he purposefully tells us the “Genesis” story with an authoritative voice, and “The Earth Diver” story with a storyteller’s voice. Why does King give us this analysis that depends on pairing up oppositions into a tidy row of dichotomies? What is he trying to show us?

As a reader and a listener we have two choices, first we have the choice to read compliantly by believing in what the author or the speaker is telling us. Secondly, we as a reader and a listener have the right to refute what is being told to us and disagree with it’s content entirely. Luckily, we have a choice as to what we will and want to believe from a storyteller or an author. We can agree with King’s narrative story ‘The Earth Diver”, about how the world came to be through the process of narration. This version, I believe would target very open minded people who are willing to listen to a story in it’s entirely and perhaps have certain questions answered or have the willingness to accept a story that doesn’t essentially follow a hierarchical pattern. On the other hand, we can believe in King’s version of creation through the “Genesis”, which tells us how the world was created and does not leave room for question. King’s two versions of how the world came to be were created to target two different types of people, the followers, who like some sort of higher power and follow hierarchies. The second type, are those who follow based on creative stories. These types of people have a historical tie to some sort of idea of a religious regime, but also have the ability to take in “out of the ordinary ideas” and give them a chance. I may be going out on a large limb here by stating that these two stories only target two types of people, however I promise I will explain.

King is trying to show us that we can either think two ways as a human being within the world. One, we can think in the box, being told how things work and why they work because that makes the most sense to us. Or, we can get creative and step outside of the standard norms that society has created and think openly for ourselves.

The “Genesis” story follows biblical examples. King states that he “tried to maintain a sense of rhetorical distance and decorum while organizing the story for a knowledgeable gathering”(King 22). I believe he told this story to cater to religious backgrounds because like mentioned, many of world creation stories follow the Adam and Eve phenomenon and incorporate “the tree of knowledge of good and evil”(21). This story is told so that the knowledge is out there that many do believe in a hierarchy of God and his followers. The story can’t be ignored, it’s out there and many of us have heard it. I would be confident betting that more people have heard the “Genesis” story compared to “The Earth Digger” because it is standard, to the point and considered normal within many religions.

By telling readers and listeners “The Earth Digger” story, we are able to gain a different perspective in an engaging way by taking out any sense of leadership. Instead of a hierarchy, the native story deals with the issue of “balance”(24) between all, not just one man in charge of the world. This story is completely amazing. It’s creative and told in a really well thought out way. I believe that King’s message here was not to contradict how the world came to be, based on “Genesis”, but to get readers and listeners to second guess themselves and the way they want to see the world. Just because we as children, or adults, were told that the world was created one certain way does not mean that we need to adapt our way of thinking to believe the story we were once told. We are allowed to have our own opinions and make our own assumptions about the world based on the way we want to see it.

By allowing us to hear two different stories of creation, King gives us options. He doesn’t hide the version of “Genesis” but he does not promote it. He tells it to the point, short and brief and in the tone of an authoritarian. However, “The Earth Digger” is told in an engaging way. This may be because King already knows that most of the readers and listeners understand the “Genesis” story already and he wants to give the native story equal opportunity.

I was raised Christian growing up and although I do not practice as much as I once did, I am proud of what I believe in and what I was taught. However, I also have an open mind and I do not necessarily believe in one way of how the world was created, which I know contradicts my beliefs as well as King’s statement “if we believe one story to be sacred, we must see the other as secular”(25). To me, the outcomes of “The Earth Digger” story are way more powerful because of the way King told it. If is goal was to get me to see a different perspective, he accomplished his goal. The meaning behind Charm is equality and that is something that I am proud to believe in and want to retell.
Did anyone else feel the same reading the two stories from an already somewhat religious background? Did anyone one else have a hard time believing in just one of the versions?

-Jessica

Works Cited

Kelman, Herbert C. “The Processes of Opinion Change”. Public Opinion Quarterly. 1961. Web. 4 Feb 2015. http://scholar.harvard.edu/hckelman/files/ProcessesofOpinion.pdf

King, Thomas. The Truth About Stories: A Native Narrative. Peterbough:Anansi Press. 2003. Print.

“Stories From The Bible: The Creation”. Youtube. Web. 4 Feb 2015. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rLoO3kI_SMg

The blogs about what each of us classify as home are so unique and so individualistic. Although some of us have the same characteristics that define home, they are described in our own unique ways, giving each of our definitions of the word “home” a personal attachment. I found that each time I read someone’s blog a new thought of what home meant to me crowded my head and I felt as if I wanted to go and add to my blog. Something about reading other peoples writing and thoughts triggers my own and helps define some of the things I wanted to say, however I just couldn’t put it into writing.

I found that a lot of the blogs included external and internal characteristics of what home means to each person. I also described my definition of home on the outside as well as intrinsically, so it was nice to compare my thoughts with others as well. Here are some of my findings:

External Characteristics:
• The structure of the house. This includes color, size and anything unique or memorable about the house.
• The location, the neighborhood and the relevance to other close by locations or familiar areas such as Kerrisdale, Richmond, or Downtown Vancouver.
• Any child-like attributes to the location of the house, such as a monkey tree in the front yard, a swing set across the street, a trampoline out back, a pool, or the perfect climbing tree near by.
• The type of people within the neighborhood and their houses.
• Comparing old homes new to home characteristics, pointing out common desires throughout each different house and each different moving event.

The internal characteristics I found to be the most important because a lot of my classmates discussed “making a house a home” based on characteristics that they found to be intrinsic. These characteristics were much more personal to each blogger and while reading, I could sense a strong personal connection to each different characteristic my classmates were writing about. The common defining factor of home was the presence of family. This seemed to be an overall strong point of focus within the blogs, which I also found to be most important within my own description of home.

Internal Characteristics:
• The presence of family, regardless of the location.
• Friends near or far that have created memories with each individual person in that specific location.
• A sense of familiarity with the people around each individual.
• Common faces.
• Comfort and happiness.
• An overall sense of belonging.

Although a lot of us have different definitions of our version of home, from where we grew up, to how many times we’ve moved, and which family members we have lived with, we all seem to have something in common. We all are passionate about our homes and the people that have made our “house a home”. We all seem to be really lucky to have a place we call home.

Happy Monday!

-Jessica

Works Cited

Carter, Susie.”Home Is Wherever I’m With You”. I’m all about those books. UBC Blogs. Web. 2 Feb 2015.

Liu, Jeffery.”Cause I’m Gonna Make This Place My Home”. Canadian Eh? UBC Blogs. Web. 2 Feb 2015.