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:
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.
Hey Jess!
My assigned pages were the ten pages just before yours (probably because our names are close in the alphabet), and so I found some connections with what you have addressed. For example, you mention that Christian asks Latisha about the Western and why the Indians are always the ones that wind up dead. This is significant in one of my allusions as well. What I learned after researching the allusions made to Remington’s bar and a well-known Western actor, I’ve come to realize that the Old West was highly romanticized and put on somewhat of a pedestal. What I mean is that the Western movies, films and even paintings were highly idealized through the use of cowboys. By demonstrating that cowboys were always the ones to win in “battles” tells us that whites at the time were very self-centered and believed that they were the best of the best. Another thing I want to point out after doing this research project, is that a lot of what was happening during times like the Old Wests and western bars, was reflected in white literature, film and media. I find this interesting because this reflection tells us that whites were (and sometimes still are) the administrators or powers before media and television. I believe that whites needed to be in control and power of these things so that they could mask that which they were doing wrong, like displacing Indians and dispossessing them of land. Being in charge of media, newspaper and television would whites to force readers, viewers and listeners to believe that which they were saying, and therefore, show the world that they were not doing anything wrong, but rather, that everything was fine and dandy.
Did you grasp this out of doing your research project? I learned quite a lot about things that didn’t even have to really do with the book too! Did you?
Jess P
Hey Jess!
Thanks for commenting. I also found a lot of your allusions, as I too read your blog! I thought it would be interesting to read the pages around the research I did to see if it was similar, different, or if your research pointed out something that enhanced mine, or vice versa. I totally agree with you about Westerns being on a pedestal. It kinda makes me sad and annoyed that, that was the case because reading all of these different types of stories, King’s, the creation stories, etc, makes me wonder how different the world would be if we were a little more open to different ideas. I found that the predominance of Westerns within my section wasn’t as predominant as others, but it was still there. I was reading a few other blogs and found their sections to focus much more on Western’s and the idea of “the White Man Way”, however nonetheless it was still present throughout my sections. I also found I learned a lot more outside of the book while doing this assignment. I am usually good at finding allusions for metaphors or catch phrases, however I found this one to be quite outside of the box to be honest. The allusions were right there in front of me but I almost had to sift through them!
Did you find this assignment relatively easy to find allusions or did you struggle a little like me?
Thanks for your comment Jess!
Jessica R
Hi Jessica!
Thanks again for the awesome blog post, I always appreciate your honesty in juggling these types of assignments first hand like most of us are!
I just wanted to comment a little bit about John Wayne. I grew up watching countless western movies, dudes on horses shooting stuff. Yeehaw. Only through this course have I started to look at, with a more critical eye, the effect of these films on our perceptions of cultures and evidently our relationships with other cultures. The NY Times has an article (http://www.nytimes.com/2000/09/22/us/indian-office-no-place-for-john-wayne.html) that talks about David Gover of the Bureau of Indian Affairs. In this article, David Gover is quoted in saying “There were the John Wayne movies…You know, a white man fires a shot and six Indians fall off their horses. . . .”. I think this quote goes beyond just killing six Indians. I think what he means is that every time media portrays one culture belittling another, there is an effect immeasurable purely by the number of bullets fired. John Wayne may have an on-screen death count of all those he had killed to save the day, his princess or his town, but this doesn’t measure the effect he has had on what our culture defines as justified. Perhaps he has contributed to more of the ‘cowboy versus Indians’ debate that he thought, after all, if isn’t just shooting someone that he was good at, it was shooting Indians.
How can we look at our media portrayals with a more critical eye in it’s effects on our culture? Can we begin to shape our media today as less dangerous and harmful to such effects?
Thanks Jess,
– Jeffrey
Hey Jeff,
Thanks for your post! I have to be honest in my writing because I feel like everyone else, I hope, had some difficulty too on this assignment, which may make them feel a little better! Thanks for the comment about that, I really liked that.
Great article link by the way, I think you should post this on the Facebook page because I do agree that the media perceptions really change the way we think, not only on an individual level but a cultural level as well. I find it interesting that you grew up watching Westerns because so did I. My dad always had one on the TV when he was watching. I remember countless times that I would come home from school and he would have one on while making dinner. This was when I was like 5 or 6, which was relatively young for a child to be watching a movie with shooting, but nonetheless it happened.
I don’t think our media today is any less dangerous than it was years ago. Yes, we know more now than we did, due to the technology and the way our society is headed but I think it is still dangerous. I think the idea of “what we don’t know can’t hurt us” is extremely wrong because eventually we will know about it and it’s effects. I am a firm believer that everything will eventually come out in the wash, whether it be secrets or money that is owed to you. I believe over time it’ll all be resolved but I think a little differently in terms of the media. First off, I am not a huge fan of social media and I believe that our privacy is invaded with it. The fact that Facebook has a right to own anything we post and if we delete our account but want to come back to it in a few years, all of our information is still there, is extremely concerning to me. The media now just has a better way of masking the danger, but the same image is there.
I am not a big fan of the media, but I do try and take an open mind to it. Do you think the media is evolving for the better?
Thanks for your post Jeff! They are always very interesting!
Jessica R