English 470A

This week, I’ll be attempting to connect the stories in Green Grass, Running Water from page 348 to 360. Throughout the novel, King’s writing often alludes to Christian ideology and forms of imperial text. My assigned pages had a more “obvious” allusion with the “young man walking on water” (It references the miracle of Jesus walking on water from the bible). King depicts “young man walking on water” saving a bunch of mariners from a storm which is very “Christ” like. However, King clearly intended to satirize him as young man walking on water is portrayed as an arrogant individual. In this passage, King clearly mocks the godly powers of Jesus whilst portraying him as rather arrogant:

“No one is allowed to be in two place at once. Except me” (King 350).

King also utilizes allusions to North American Indian mythology. The “Old woman” is an archetypal helper to a culture hero. This is clear parody at work, as she offers help to young man walking on water the “Christian culture hero”.

King further alludes to the bible with numerous name drops in this humorous passage:

“‘I know, I know,’ says Coyote. ‘She sees a golden calf!’

‘Wrong again,’ I says.

‘A pillar of salt!’, says Coyote.

‘Nope.’  I says to Coyote.

‘A burning bush!’ says Coyote.

‘Where do you get these things?’ I says.

‘I read a book,’ says Coyote” (349)

King is clearly mocking the Bible as Coyote simply refers to the source of his stories as “a book”. The interesting guesses Coyote makes are all taken from well known biblical stories such as Lot’s wife and Moses and the burning bush. I think the presence of Religious allusion and satire helps contrast God and Coyote’s arguments more clearly since readers will only find the humour in King’s parody through understanding.

References

Flick, Jane. “Reading Notes for Thomas King’s Green Grass Running Water.” Canadian Literature 161-162.

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

Paterson, Erika. “Lesson 3:2.” ENGL 470A Canadian Studies Canadian Literary Genres. University of British Columbia Blogs, 2013.

In last week’s blog,  I managed to highlight some of the unique features of Green Grass Running Water. However, upon reading this week’s lesson, I realized I missed some detail about Coyote and what Coyote had to teach us. There were details which I had not considered during my initial interpretation of the text. For example, I understood the reference from Lesson 3.2 about Coyote being a trickster and comparable to the “Fool” characters in Shakespeare’s plays. However, I wasn’t entirely sure about Coyote as a “Transformer”. I wanted to familiarize myself with the idea of “Transformers” in First Nations story traditions before discussing my interpretation of the Coyote’s role in the novel.

The idea of the transformer is an essential aspect of Native oral traditions, a type of communication that goes against fixation. Coyote seems to embody that idea because the character is very multifaceted (almost unpredictable). King’s use of Coyote as a transformer introduces the element of irregularity, which allows the successful merge of native creation stories with Christian and contemporary ideas. In addition, Coyote’s character helps guide readers to question their “truths” and their assumptions. For example, in this passage:

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

“Okay,” says Coyote. “Tell me a story.”” (King, 326)

King is directly questioning the idea of a “truth”. Does it exist? Are truths mutually exclusive?  I believe good literature and good teachers lead their students to constantly ask questions and think outside the box. Although I think Coyote Pedagogy is quite an exaggerated (and funny) coined term, I found Coyote successful in provoking our thinking. This quotation from Flick’s article summarizes Coyote’s “method of teaching” pretty well:

“King’s strategy for writing for an audience primarily composed of the uninformed is not to pander to its preconceptions or to produce explanations, but to entice, even trick this audience into finding out for themselves.” (Flick, 132)

What better way to teach things to readers than to have Coyote be part of the learning journey as well? Although Coyote is rather terrible at learning the stories, he has the attributes that make him an eager student. Coyote is always tuned in to the storyteller and ready to ask questions.  These small things further encourage readers to question assumptions and look for answers themselves.

**edit**

During my research on Transformers and Coyote pedagogy, I stumbled upon this interesting perspective on Coyote pedagogy by Hoefler. I wasn’t entirely sure how I wanted to include that information in my blog post but I felt it was worth sharing!

“The coyote teacher works on the basis of three principles (Hoefler 2009):

1. The principle of disruption: Coyote is a boundary-breaker and a disruptor of things, and so the coyote teacher will try to disturb the learners and make them question their accepted beliefs and methods for doing things. If learners become disturbed enough, they will seek their own answers, and coyote teachers know that the road (i.e. the process) is more important than the destination (i.e. the answers).
2. The principle of chaos: Coyote is often the cause of chaos, and when the coyote teacher creates chaos in the classroom, it often allows for new connections, new understandings – in short, learning.
3. The principle of discomfort: Nothing is more discomforting than difficult questions, and it is the task of the coyote teacher to help learners discover such questions and then push them to seek their own answers. “

 

References

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

Flick, Jane. “Reading Notes for Thomas King’s Green Grass Running Water.” Canadian Literature 161-162. (1999). Web. July 13, 2014

Paterson, Erika. “Lesson 3:2.” ENGL 470A Canadian Studies Canadian Literary Genres. University of British Columbia Blogs, 2013. Web. 13 July. 2014.

Hoefler, Eric. “Coyote Teaching”. <http://erichoefler.com/2007/02/14/coyote-teaching/> Web. 12 July. 2014

When I first read King’s “Green Grass Running Water”, the similarities to Robinson’s “Coyote Makes a Deal with the King Of England”.   caught my attention immediately. It felt like King was paying homage to Robinson’s style of writing; further expanding on the idea of oral and written traditions. One very noticeable similarity is the use of short sentences. Both authors use  pauses and short sentence structures to imitate the feel of storytelling and performance. These techniques are typical of a story telling voice that capture the attention of audiences.  Another similarity shared by the two stories is the use of dialogue. Excessive back and forth dialogue is typically found in things such as plays where there is a re-creation of a scene. Once again, both authors use this technique to emulate performance and story telling. 

Although there are many similarities between the two stories, King adds several unique touches to the text that separates “Green Grass Running Water” with “Coyote Makes a Deal with the King of England”. Firstly, King’s text seems to be very self-aware and uses elements of satire and humour to display the contrast between oral and written traditions.  He achieves this by alluding to characters such as Robinson Crusoe (The novel explores colonialism, slavery and contact with different cultures) and makes fun of him. I particularly enjoyed this allusion because I read this novel in an 18th century literature class. King also cleverly satirizes the western concept of written tradition by laughing at the fact that Crusoe had a strong tendency to write lists to weigh out pros and cons.

“Does he write novels? says Thought Woman.
No, says that Island. He writes lists.”

Another example of King’s hilarious use of satire is with his choice of the character Lone Ranger. King is making fun of how ridiculous Westerners have decided to portray “The cowboy and Indian” (Here’s a contemporary example of how they are portrayed). It’s worth pointing out that the voice in King’s text is much more formal compared to Robinson’s. I think the formality allows King to convey his message using satire very uniquely.

References

Paterson, Erika. “Lesson 3:1.” ENGL 470A Canadian Studies Canadian Literary Genres. University of British Columbia Blogs, 2013. Web. 6 July. 2014.

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.

Coyote, absent minded drawing, viewed 6 June 2014. <http://absentmindeddrawing.blogspot.hk/2010/06/coyote.html>

Last week, I mentioned that seeing the questions prior to the readings may lead you to have certain assumptions and expectations. This week, I decided to engage the readings first. I wanted to read without having to “look out” for specific things. For question 1, we were asked to read and approach “Coyote Makes a Deal with the King Of England” in 4 different ways (“silently, read it out loud, read it to a friend, and have a friend read it to you”). 

When I read the the text silently, I immediately noticed the distinct structure of the story. The structure of the sentences and paragraphs had resemblance to free verse poetry. The length of the sentences and the paragraphs influenced sound and speed at how I silently read to myself. The constant use of short sentences made it extremely hard to read silently / in your head (Personally, I read a lot faster when in silence as opposed to reading things aloud). The unique broken English made it hard to visualize and comprehend the story in my mind. I realized I had to slow it down and tell the story to myself silently but as if I were reading it out aloud. Personally, I found the oral syntax of the story discourages and makes it difficult readers to read it in silence. I also found myself asking “Why is he constantly repeating himself !?”. 

Robinson’s use of rhetorical questions in his story suggests that this story should be read aloud to others. He also pre-emptively answers some of the questions for his readers in parts where there is no dialogue between the Coyote and the King. For example, he directly addresses the readers on page 66 several times: 

“But when they can’t see him, what they gonna do? 

…

Do you know what the angel was?

Do you know?

The Angel, God’s angel, you know.”

I also noticed that the choice of diction was  somewhat colloquial. The use of “gonna” and “you know” are phrases we find in everyday dialogue.  As the story continues, the diction follows this trend as Robinson constantly uses “And” and “So” to join his sentences and thoughts. The use of these language tools reminded me of the narrator from the “The Hobbit”, which I vividly remember as being very engaging and somewhat intrusive (perfect in recreating the storytelling performance).

When I read the story aloud to a family member, the story felt more a bit more “natural”. My family actually asked why I was talking in such a funny way. I just said “This story just … wants me to read it this way?”. Some stories are meant to be read out loud (similar to bed time stories), and I found this story to be no different. The sentences and words heavily influence the format of a story. 

References

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.

Paterson, Erika. “Lesson 2:3.” ENGL 470A Canadian Studies Canadian Literary Genres. University of British Columbia Blogs, 2013. Web. 29 June. 2014.

Usually I read all the lesson information and the questions prior to tackling the readings. However, this week’s lesson convinced me to use a different approach in the future. When I read the question, I thought of my previous blog post which sparked a very interesting discussion on Facebook (Similar to Lutz, I assumed my readers belonged to a European tradition).  After reading question 3, I noticed I had a few assumptions and expectations prior to reading  Lutz’s “First Contact as Spiritual Performance” (I honestly questioned the credibility of the article). As I read the quoted parts from Lutz’s text in the question, I found myself agreeing with the points that were pointed out. I thought he definitely assumes that his readers are of European tradition and that it is more difficult for a European to understand Indigenous performances (Lutz, “First Contact” 32).

However, this lead me to question myself… If I had not been asked to look out for Lutz’s assumptions in the text, would I have noticed it? I’m not sure I would have noticed without multiple readings. I think this was a very good example / wake up call at how assumptions can play a large role in how we read and interpret things.

Lutz attempts to highlight the spiritual importance of first contact between the Europeans and the Indigenous in a fair and academic way. Despite his attempt to engage readers about importance of understanding the spiritual component of contact events (45), his text occasionally has an undertone of European identity. For example, in this passage we see Lutz’s assumptions about who the reader is and what they know: “But this difficulty we are at least aware of. The key and usually unremarked problem is that we have insufficient distance from our own and our ancestor’s world view” (32). The use of “we” seems to suggest that the reader identifies as European and that ALL Europeans seem to have difficulty understanding Indigenous performances.  I found that Lutz’s assumptions were definitely not fair. In his defence, when his wording is scrutinized out of context, it comes off as extremely ethnocentric (I’m sure that was not his intent). According to Lesson 2.2, “both parties depended on their own already long told stories to interpret the other’s performance” (Lesson 2.2, Paterson). In a similar way, Lutz’s article had an underlying tone of the European story despite trying to portray both sides in a factual and unbiased way. 

References

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.

Paterson, Erika. “Lesson 2:2.” ENGL 470A Canadian Studies Canadian Literary Genres. University of British Columbia Blogs, 2013. Web. 21 June. 2014.

Story

I sat at the back of Jason’s car as we cruised past the beautiful Vancouver scenery. I recalled the many times I laughed at the inefficiency and slow paced style of this city. It was always something that annoyed me since I first arrived. Looking back, I couldn’t keep count of the times I’ve said:

“I could never live here…”

Yet, I feel strongly attached.

I look down at my watch and we’re pretty early. My flight wasn’t leaving for another 3 hours. We decided to have one last meal with our group of friends before I left. The tone of dinner was nostalgic and sentimental, most of us realized it would be a LONG while until we will all be sitting together and having a meal. I think we all realized it was something we took for granted. My friends made the rough parts of Vancouver easier to handle and the good parts even better. My friends here became my second family, my home away from home.

As I waited at the gate by myself, it felt bitter sweet to finally go back to see my parents. It has been over four year since I last saw them. For the first time, I felt anxious about going back “home”.

I wonder if I’ll experience reverse culture shock?

Commentary and thoughts

I had difficulty writing this blog assignment!

This assignment evoked a lot of  feelings and reflections as to what I consider home. Over the past few days, my mind had numerous ideas about the values and stories that connect myself to my home. Despite the abundance of ideas, I failed to solidify anything into writing on my blog. I tried several times to describe my sense of home but I found myself deleting what I wrote and starting from scratch.

I realized my difficulty answering this question stems from the fact that I’m about to leave my home.  I have 15 days remaining in Vancouver before I leave back to Hong Kong (where I went to high school and spent the majority of my life). Vancouver became part of my life. Another home. My mind was / is flustered by the bitter-sweet feelings of having to leave one home for another. I channelled some of those feelings into my story and hoped to convey the idea that two entirely different cities can both be your home.  I guess my sense of home doesn’t come from the beauty or lifestyle that accompanies a city (I’d say those are luxuries). I find myself at home when I have people who understand me, and when I have people to share beautiful moments with.

“Where we love is home, home that our feet may leave, but not our hearts.”

– Oliver Wendell Holmes

 

“Home is not where you live but where they understand you” 

– Christian Morgenstern

References

““Where we love is home,Home that the feet may leave,but not our hearts.”.” Goodreads. N.p., n.d. Web. 12 June 2014. <http://www.goodreads.com/quotes/301013-where-we-love-is-home-home-that-the-feet-may>. Web

“Home is not where you live but where they understand you.” Goodreads. N.p., n.d. Web. 12June 2014. <http://www.goodreads.com/quotes/161531-home-is-not-where-you-live-but-where-they-understand>. Web