My assigned pages for this post are 260-270, but I  take a slightly broader approach to the analysis where necessary; the book is packed with allusions, and to dissect meaning I am going to divide my analysis into three character groups: those representing King’s family, those representing First Nations culture, and those representing Western culture.

The characters that I felt were meant to reference King’s family struck me immediately, and I was surprised to see Flick’s guide in disagreement with my impression. Eli Stand Alone, to me, is the figure of Thomas King, and there are multiple reasons for this connection. First, there is no mention of Eli’s father, and we learn in The Truth About Stories that King’s father left him at a young age. Along the same line is Eli’s name itself; I think Stand Alone references King’s lack of a father figure and his need to ‘stand up’ for himself as a young man. Eli also notes how “his mother had built the[ir] house. Log by log” (113). If we think back to earlier in this class about the connection many of us have between house, home, and family, I think we can read this as a description of King’s mother single-handedly raising her two children. If we read Eli as King then we must necessarily read those around him as other family members. I think reading Karen as Helen (King’s partner) is very possible; if you switch UofToronto with UofLethbridge their first encounter (161) is entirely plausible, and the fact that Karen and Eli make many references to her parents being progressive supports this view as well given that Helen and King have not been married.  Eli is also called a teacher by Norma (264), and the wild chase I went on to back up this connection started during my close reading of the assigned section. This allusion may seem thin to some, and I have found it incredibly difficult to find any kind of biographical information about King online, but I thought I would share.

Happily, I also had Coyote pop up in my section, and I could not possibly leave this little guy out of my analysis. As you can find in my link (which is not at all an attempt to generate comments), Coyote can transcend cultural boundaries, but I want to look at him here as a representative of First Nations orature. On page 266 we find Coyote playing the role of trickster as Bursum gets his store ready for opening one morning. This trickster role is a one that Coyote classically plays, as we are told by Flick in her notes (15),  and we can also find this in Harry Robinson’s stories from previous weeks. GGRW uses Coyote as a classic First Nations representative intermittently throughout the story, especially when the narrator is attempting to finish his or her creation story. If we go back to he beginning of the book we realize that this entire story by King is framed as Coyote’s doing, which firmly place the narrative into a First Nations setting. At the beginning there was nothing but some water and Coyote, then Coyote allows dog to be GOD which gets the narrator going about the creation story, and, quickly flipping now to the last page of the novel, we see that the narrator has not quite gotten his point across even at the end of the story. Bookmarking the tale with Coyote is important in two ways, First, it reminds the reader at both the outset and the end that this was a story centered around First Nations culture. This is why we have to read out loud sometimes (like when Ray, Louie, and Al show up), and why the narrative is made up of a collection of narratives. We have learned how stories are constantly changing and interacting with their environment, and King deftly slides in and out of the multiple narratives in GGRW (sometimes bringing the characters with him) to create the book. Second, the bookmarking leaves the story unsettled, representative of First Nations issues in Canada. Many dishonored treaties, disregarded land claims, and a general misunderstanding of First Nations culture still exist throughout our great nation. After 400 pages the narrator seemingly has been unable to get through to Coyote. But perhaps Coyote knows something about First Nations history that the narrator does not, and their dialogue must continue before the story can be sealed as complete.

This section also gives us A.A. Gabriel, or Archangel Gabriel from the Bible. Along with other Western characters in the text, such as GOD, Gabriel provides us with an example of white people misunderstanding or ignoring what they are told about First Nations people by those people themselves. The first connection between A.A. and the society more generally is when he improperly displays his card, showing Thought Woman the CSIS side instead of the side that presents him as a “heavenly host” (270-271). Shortly thereafter he asks Thought Woman for her name, ignores her response (or simply doesn’t hear/care enough for it to register, I’m not entirely sure what King is getting at here [although all three points in unison is a possibility for this book]) and then writes down Mary. There is a clear disconnect between Thought Woman and A.A., which leads to Thought Woman eventually fleeing as A.A. tries to convince her to sign the newly formed paper that would make her the virgin mother. This scene perfectly embodies the classic dialogue between Western and First Nations cultures, and shows how this dialogue needs to change to be efficient. Thought Woman is not what A.A. had in mind, so he uses his ‘knowledge’ to incorrectly fill the gaps  instead of actively engaging in a dialogue with her and finding the true answer.

So after reading King’s story, what kind of Indian do you have in mind?

Works Cited

King, Thomas. Green Grass, Running Water. Toronto: HarperPerennial Canada, 1999. Print.

King, Thomas. The Truth about Stories: A Native Narrative. Toronto, ON: House of Anansi, 2003. Print.

Meiszner, Peter. “City of Vancouver Formally Declares City Is on Unceded Aboriginal Territory.” Global News 1 Jan. 2014. Print.

Coyote pedagogy, astutely described by Fee and Flick in Canadian Literature, is a fantastic way of interpreting the writing of Thomas King. Fee and Flick pick up on how King forces his reader to transcend cultural boundaries by mixing both First Nations and Western tropes into jokes and dialogue; thus the reader must engage and appreciate symbols from a multiplicity of cultures if they want to be part of the ‘in-group’ of King’s novel (in this case, Green Grass Running Water). This need to understand numerous cultural symbols of both ‘white’ and ‘Aboriginal’ origins is the basis of Coyote pedagogy, and Fee and Flick argue that this “requires training in illegal border crossing” to fully enjoy King’s work (131). They had me at illegal.

The first instance of Coyote pedagogy is immediate in Green Grass, and there should be no surprise that Coyote is front and center in the story as well.

“In the beginning, there was nothing. Just Water.” (1)

Don’t worry, Coyote was there too. Not God, as we may have expected based off of Judeo-Christian stories, although GOD does show up once Dog Dream gets himself sorted out (with some help from Coyote). To understand these opening pages one must be attuned to First Nations creation stories as well as Western ones. The reader needs to appreciate the presence of both Coyote and God, but to add another fun little twist he throws himself in there too (or the narrator, if he and it are not duplicates). But if he is the narrator, then what we really have here is the creation story of Green Grass, with Coyote, God, and King, all playing roles. Our Coyote pedagogy now has three levels in this book; hope your passport is empty (just kidding, this is illegal border crossing so we don’t need those).

Coyote’s importance in the book is to facilitate the cultural transcendence that King wants his readers to achieve, and he does this by adding Coyote to the creation story as a representative of First Nations cultures. GOD serves as the representation of Judeo-Christian culture, and the narrator (whether King or not) brings both of these representatives together for the reader. One instance of this is when the narrator is trying to recount his creation story, and is continually interrupted by both Coyote and GOD (38-41). To assuage GOD’s worries about the presence of a garden the narrator assures him that “the garden will be here soon” (40), and aside from telling Coyote “we’re going to have to sit on that mouth of yours” (147) he is fairly patient with Coyote’s constant interjections. The narrator is to Coyote and GOD as King is to us, the reader. During the interspersed bits of creation story the narrator recounts his creation story to the two representatives (Coyote and GOD), explaining as he goes, and during the rest of the novel King is priming the reader to make these same connections with the various characters. Coyote, then, is not only an important figure during the creation story, but he serves as a symbol to help readers make broader connections throughout the text as a whole.

Works Cited

Flick, Jane, and Margery Fee. “Coyote Pedagogy: Knowing Where the Borders Are in Thomas King’s Green Grass, Running Water.” Canadian Literature 161/162 (1999): 131-39. Web.

King, Thomas. Green Grass, Running Water. Toronto: HarperPerennial Canada, 1999. Print.

As we have heard from Dr. Paterson, nationalism and the notion of a national identity is inherently imbued with ideas of race. This should not come as a huge surprise, as we have not scene very much cross-cultural marrying until recent history as many countries tried to achieve the ‘perfect’ nation-state. Daniel Coleman talks about how this played out in Canada; the British connection for many early settlers tended to dominate their notion of what our nation should look like, giving the term Canadian a specific whiteness that was (and remains) a misnomer. Recently the government has tried to make reparations for the damage it did to non-white communities, and the Canadian Multiculturalism Act (The Act) serves as one of those ventures. It is an attempt to cast away the whiteness of being Canadian that was previously propounded, but it still retains many elements of race and ethnicity which may hamper the effort it is intended to make.

The Act explicitly sets out to “recognize and promote the understanding that multiculturalism reflects the cultural and racial diversity of Canadian society”. This is a great step, as it definitively rejects the white focus of previous attempts at nation building and acknowledges the multiplicity of people that call Canada home. The Act also acknowledges “that multiculturalism is a fundamental characteristic of the Canadian heritage and identity and that it provides an invaluable resource in the shaping of Canada’s future”. This point is especially important in that it acknowledges the Aboriginal and French influences that were just as important as the British ones as Canada was growing up. The Act goes on to propound ideas that counter racism, promote inclusion, and most importantly suggest that the governments intends to educate the populace on what multiculturalism really is, why it is important, and how we currently misunderstand it.

Rosy picture. So things are looking good then. Right?

Not really. Godlewska et al. find that Canadian are still ignorant as to what First Nations’ cultures entail, let alone how the history of those cultures has been misrepresented in many instances. On top of that, Campolieti et al. find that recent immigrants to Canada are, economically speaking, the furthest behind any other immigrant cohort over the last forty years, yet they are assimilating faster than ever. What happened to the celebration of multiple cultures? One reason (among many) The Act has failed to make an impression on the Canadian culturescape is its emphasis on differences in race and culture. It does not suggest that Canadians share a heritage or culture, but rather, as noted above, that our nation exists in the form of a collection diverse cultures and races. I think it may be difficult to convince a group of people that they are the same through their otherness. Given that our past initiatives have failed, where do we turn to bridge the gaps between immigrant, First Nations, and ‘white’ cultures? Is it imperative to move away from a collections of others and towards defining what exactly a ‘Canadian’, or can this group of otherness effectively, happily, and willingly conglomerate into a distinct and cohesive nation?

P.S. While this blog does not explicitly deal with issues surrounding Canadian canon building it certainly could be of use, especially if we can find a way to answer the ending questions.

Works Cited

“Canadian Multiculturalism Act (R.S.C., 1985, C. 24 (4th Supp.)).” Legislative Services Branch. Web. 2 Mar. 2015. <http://laws-lois.justice.gc.ca/eng/acts/C-18.7/FullText.html>.

“Population by Selected Ethnic Origins, by Province and Territory (2006 Census) (Canada).” Government of Canada, Statistics Canada. Web. 2 Mar. 2015. <http://www.statcan.gc.ca/tables-tableaux/sum-som/l01/cst01/demo26a-eng.htm>.

Anne M. C. Godlewska, Laura Schaefli, Paul Chaput. “First Nations assimilation through neoliberal educational reform”. The Canadian Geogrpaher. 57.3 (2013) 271-279.

Michele Campolieti, Morley Gunderson, Olga Timofeeva, Evguenia Tsiroulnitchenko. “Immigrant Assimilation, Canada 1971-2006: Has the tide turned?”. Journal of Labour Research. 34.4 (2013) 455-475.