Monthly Archives: April 2014

My task was to examine pg. 94-102 in King’s Green Grass Running Water. Page 94-96 focuses on the interaction between Sergeant Cereno and Dr. Joe Hovaugh, where the Hovaugh explains his grandfather’s vision of building the hospital, and he began by buying a piece of land from a local tribe. When I was reading this story out loud, I found out that the doctor’s name sounded like Jehovah, as Professor Paterson has also pointed out. With that being said, King makes a reference that places him in the Christian mythological framework. However, rather than making the doctor an almighty, all-knowing individual, Dr. Joe Hovaugh is portrayed as clueless and confused. He also finds difficulty interacting with people around him. The purpose of Dr. Hovaugh’s character seems unsettle the relationship between indigenous people and the Christian majority. However, Dr. Hovaugh is also a powerful character who dislikes those who challenges his position or authority. He is like a God in the way where he regards the natives as mentally unstable. The doctor’s attitude towards the natives projects the same way as how Caucasians saw Natives as savages who required attention and education.

Page 97 concerns Norma and Lionel driving when they spot the four Indians on the side of the road, lost.

Page 98 includes Alberta, Patrolman Delano, Sergeant Cereno, and Lionel asking, “Where did the water come from?” one after another. To my understanding, each of the four main characters share a creation story that explains for the amount of water. Thus, King uses these four characters to tell a symbolic narrative of how the world was created and what the first people on earth did.

Finally, page 99-100 is about First Woman and Ahdamn taken to a train station. As the First Woman and Ahdamn are leaving, there is a guard that shouts when he sees the Lone Ranger walking out of the prison. The Lone Ranger, Robinson Crusoe, Hawkeye, and Ishmael leave together and head West. The Lone Ranger, Robinson Crusoe, Hawkeye and Ishmael are all Caucasian characters from western literature. However, King has transformed these characters into natives in this novel to present an alternative perspective to the stories. The purpose of this alteration is to disrupt their perceived notions as heroic and brave as Western protagonist figures. Instead, King portrays these characters differently to mock them. Not only do they undermine the popular attitude of western literary figures, but biblical figures as well. Ultimately, as Flick so puts it, “there’s a lot of material to pack in and the only way to do it is through promoting lateral (or bilateral or trilateral) cross-border thinking in the reader” (Flick, 138)

References:

Fee, Margery and Flick, Jane. “Coyote Pedagogy: Knowing Where the Borders Are in Thomas King’s Green Grass, Running Water.” Canlit.ca: Canadian Literature, 2012. Web. 16 Apr. 2014.

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

Paterson, Erika. “ENGL 470A Canadian Studies: Canadian Literary Genres”. ENGL 470A Canadian Studies: Canadian Literary Genres. 2014. Web. <https://blogs.ubc.ca/engl470/unit-3/lesson-3-3/>

I am currently taking an adult education course that often uses the word ‘andragogy,’ which refers to teaching strategies developed for adult learners. Thus, I am also familiar with the term ‘pedagogy’ as it refers to the method and practice of teaching. I find Fee and Flick’s term of Coyote Pedagogy quite relatable and adaptable to what we’re studying right now because the lessons we learn from the coyote is quite educational.

According to Warn in her article “A Trickster Paradigm in First Nations Visual Art: A Contemporary Application,” native reality “is best understood through the trickster, who has always been known to First Nations people through oral traditions, and who is best described as a creator that is constantly transforming and shape-shifting” (Warn, 4). With that being said, I think the role of the coyote in this sense is to unsettle the preconceived notions of the history of Canadian literature and even native studies, and truly try to understand what the motive of the Coyote wants the readers/audience to see. As Fee and Flick point out in their article, “King’s strategy for writing for an audience primarily composed of the uniformed is not to pander to its preconceptions or to produce explanations, but to entice, even trick this audience into finding out for themselves” (Fee and Flick, 132).

My understanding of the Coyote as the trickster is to intervene in the story to get readers to perceive stories from a new perspective, or to ask readers to consider old stories with different outcomes. For example, when the coyote cannot interpret a story or misreads it, this misunderstanding of the Coyote is similar to our own interpretation a story from one perspective only. As readers, we are often told old stories once as a very young age and most probably have stuck to that specific telling of a story. What the Coyote does is complicates our understanding by making us question the truth and falsehood.

Perhaps what the Coyote asks us to do is consider stories from different perspectives, and don’t always base your understanding according to one viewpoint. Most importantly, the role of the coyote is to give readers the freedom to make their own interpretations and conclusions. For example, Alberta begins to explain to her students about the four Indians, Robinson Crusoe, Ishmael, Lone Ranger, and Hawkeye. Suddenly, they are brought to a different century where they try to change the world. Alberta continues to teach her lesson, asking students to come up with meanings to the drawings. However, none of the students understood a thing, which signifies that the students are not culturally educated. The Coyote is significant because he is tasked to bring these two different worlds together, that of the European invaders and the Native population. The purpose of the Coyote as a trickster is to tie the two worlds together in the form of a story, to promote critical thinking between Canadian literature and Native studies.

Fee, Margery and Flick, Jane. “Coyote Pedagogy: Knowing Where the Borders Are in Thomas King’s Green Grass, Running Water.” Canlit.ca: Canadian Literature, 2012. Web. 9 Mar. 2014.

King, Thomas. Green Grass Running Water. New York: Bantam Doubleday Dell Publishing Group, Inc., 1993. Print.

Warn, Jaime Dawn-Lyn. A trickster paradigm in First Nations visual art: a contemporary application. Diss. Lethbridge, Alta.: University of Lethbridge, Faculty of Arts and Science, 2007, 2007.

Reading King’s Green Grass, Running Water was like reading a sequel to Robinson’s Coyote Makes a Deal with the King of England. Because both stories had characters with coyotes in them, it made me even more confused, as if the two stories overlapped one another. There are many narrative elements that are similar in the two stories that replicate the type of storytelling experience so often promoted by Robinson.

I decided to make a comparative chart on the similarities and differences I noticed in Robinson and King’s style of narrative. In Robinson’s Coyote Makes a Deal with the King of England, I noticed that the sentences are short and terse. This mocks the type of storytelling a person would use as if they were pausing and breathing in-between sentences. As a result, the effect of this type of storytelling is quite realistic and adheres to the elements of oral creation stories. The short sentences may also mean that the storyteller is pausing to make sure the audience understands the story. I think the way Robinson narrates the story is very effective in addressing readers and the audience directly because of this assumed feeling of intimacy and friendliness. This strategy is also effective in drawing in readers to LISTEN. Quite similarly, in King’s Green Grass, Running Water, the coyote also beging the story with brief and short sentences, just like Robinson’s. I think both authors use this technique as a way of engaging and interacting with readers, to draw them in closely and make them listen to the story carefully.

Another similarity these two stories shared is the frequent amount of dialogue between characters. This type of back and forth conversation between characters requires the narrator to act as if he was reproducing a scene, which I believe is another element of great storytelling. These dialogues enhance liveliness in a story, which can give the audience/readers the feeling that they are actually experiencing the story again, or as if they were actually in that scenario, reliving the moment. King and Robinson do an exquisite job at retelling their journey or what the characters are seeing exactly to share their story. I think that King has adopted to Robinson’s narrative skills well, and the two authors together do a wonderful job in creating a lively story through the performance of storytelling.

Paterson, Erika. “Lesson 3.1.” ENGL 470A Canadian Studies Canadian Literary Genres.  15 Apr. 2014. <https://blogs.ubc.ca/engl470/unit-3/lesson-3-1/>.

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

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.