Category Archives: Unit 3

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>