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.
Hi Nick, and firstly, awesome post.
I wanted to specifically comment on your last section in regards to western characters and their interaction with First Nations cultures. I think that the example you use especially for your argument is an important one, and one that I feel encompasses a lot of the difficulties in uniting these two cultures together. You write the lines “Thought Woman is not what A.A. had in mind, so he uses his ‘knowledge’ incorrectly to fill the gaps instead of actively engaging in a dialogue with her an finding the true answer. The diction that struck me the most within your couple of lines are the words “had in mind” and “uses his ‘knowledge’ incorrectly to fill the gaps”. A lot of times I feel we enter a relationship, whether one-to-one or culture-to-culture with something already in mind, someone they are ‘supposed to be’. I wrote about this a little in my own blog post about the classic ‘cowboy versus Indian’ relationship. We are exposed to certain ways of thinking, and certain ‘knowledge’ that we carry into relationships that can harm our ability to understand other parties, or “incorrectly [filling] the gaps”. Instead of engaging in dialogue, we like to follow these assumptions of what we used to or are accustomed to holding as the “truth”, especially dangerous misconceptions of what we believe define certain cultures.
How can we come to rectify these misconceptions, and if we fail, how does this affect our global culture as unified or divided?
Thanks Nick,
– Jeffrey
Hey Jeff, thanks for checking the blog out! I think that the interaction between Western and First Nations cultures is a key focus of the novel, so logically it made sense to look at the connections between the characters representing the various cultures. Along the same line as A.A. I certainly came into the class with ideas and expectations of the material that have proven to be distorted or even outright wrong. You also bring up the concept of dialoguing, and it is interesting to note how the characters in GGRW seem to dialogue almost as often as they converse with each other. I notice this especially with Eli (although other characters certainly exhibit it as well) where he can often be found speaking to someone but not directly answering there questions or addressing the points they make. This is similar to what Dr. Paterson has told us about our need to dialogue in this class; it is important for one to be careful in what they say and how they present their information, and it is important for the other party to put equal respect and effort into listening to the ideas of others, but there is no distinct need for a classic argumentative style within the dialogue. I think it is important that some of the characters in the book are exemplifying what King is trying to tell us; even they don’t know all the time, and that ends up being perfectly okay. With respect to your final question, I think this has severe implications for a global culture if we are unable to address our differences and appreciate our diversity. The power of a unified global society could be hugely beneficial to our planet, and understanding each other through dialogue may end up serving as the crucial first step.
Hi Nick,
This was a great post. I honestly had never thought of Eli being a representation of King himself, I think you did a really great job of connecting the two. I think that it is very possible that he created Eli with the intention of reflecting himself in the story. And, since King is very silent about which characters represent who and why, I think it’s safe to do a little assuming.
Why do you think King is so quiet about the connections and representations in the book? Why do you think he leaves it as a mystery for his readers to delve into? I am so curious about this! He really creates an enjoyable story but also, a puzzle for his readers to solve. Any thoughts?
Thanks,
Laura
Hey Laura, thanks for the question! I think King is purposefully quiet because he wants his readers to make connections for themselves. If King were to tell his audience what to look for and what to expect the result would be antithetical to the novel’s purpose. King goes multiple layers deep in many of his allusions to really force the reader to think about the text, and most likely to do some background research. It would be quite impressive if the average reader was able to get through the entire book with a complete understanding of the character allusions along with historical references, and if King were to set out a reading guide the research process that many of us went through for this class would be moot. In King’s interview at the end of the book he notes that we still don’t know who is an Indian, let alone what terms we should be using when referring to Indigenous/First Nation/Native cultures, and he also acknowledges that the answer is not in his head. We have to collectively become more understanding of each other to achieve large goals; King’s novel attempts to stimulate discussion and research of the ‘other’, and commenting on his characters would undermine that process.
Nick