In our last blog assignment, I ended by referencing King’s literary style in Green Grass Running Water and how it emphasized the role of orality in its literary style in conveying the story to the audience. I concluded with a statement not realizing how relevant it would be to this next assignment:
“I think of it as a way of hyperlinking a story…of having one story act as a gateway and a medium to many other stories.”
My section is from pages 24-37…it starts off with the 4 old Indians who keep escaping from Dr. Hovaugh’s institution and it ends with a unique version of a creation story.
The 4 Old Indians
Although these 4 men play some of the smarter , savvy people imprisoned at the institution, the only ones who escape and continuously too, he bases them in a rather ironic fashion. These ‘Indians’ all are subtexted by characters who placed indigenous peoples in a very secondary position; they were the heros with no mention of the ‘help’. Here King flips this over,by re-positioning each person as an ‘Indian’ to start with…the European identity has been overwritten.
–LONE RANGER: This is a reference to the popular Western’s hero, the only survivor of the Texas Rangers and a “Do Gooder” (Flick 141). The interesting thing is he always has an Indian sidekick on his adventures, but is the only one who comes out as the hero save-the-day dude. Ironically, in many Westerns he was played by a Native American.
-HAWKEYE: He is another popular culture reference, this time a literary hero of the East and he also had his very own Indian sidekick too. He was a European man named Nathaniel Bumppo who had “knowledge of ‘Indian Ways'” (Flick 142).
-ROBINSON CRUSOE: This is a reference that many often get right away as he is the shipwrecked survivalist in the similarly named book. He likewise is the hero who conquers all, albeit without credit to his sidekick, a native of the island he finds himself on.
-ISHMAEL: He is another literary reference, this time to the sole survivor in the popular novel Moby Dick. He also had a sidekick who was referenced as a savage native as well.
Lionel’s Tonsils Experience
This scene starts with an attempt to remove the boy’s tonsils…an operation which somehow nearly ends with him being mistaken for a white child and his heart nearly being operated on. The irony of this story, and how the desire of the indigenous child is subverted purposefully or not to nearly cost him his life is not lost. The way this story echoes that of residential school children, right down to the we-know-best officials is clear.
-JESSE MANY GUNS: Could this be a play on the Jesse James type of character like that of the real-life guerilla outlaw who robbed from the Union soldiers during the Civil War? He infamously became known, however untrue it was, as a Robin Hood type person and became a Wild West hero after his death.
Creation Story
Here, King took the Genesis creation story and mapped it alongside and intertwined with the creation story of many Aboriginal cultures. The results ask some interesting questions on how we see stories and what authority and patriarchy in the Christian story signify and mean to the cultures of its adherents as well as those it touches.
-FIRST WOMAN: She is a feature of both creation stories…representing Eve in the Christian version and the First/Star Woman in Aboriginal versions. In King’s version, her descent from the Sky to Water worlds is unintentional…an accident. The question of culpability, of Original Sin is all gone. King’s rewriting of this key issue that plays into the ideas of sin and patriarchy are interesting.
-AHDAMN: An obvious play on the biblical figure, Adam’s name. And just as his name is similar to the popular expression of regret upon committing mistakes, Ahdamn is a man who in the stories also makes tremendous amounts of mistakes in naming everything. Interestingly, he, unlike First Woman, is the one who King creates as the one making the mistake.
Works Cited
“Creation Stories: Canadian First Nations.” Native Creation Myths.University of Calgary History Class. Web. Accessed on 31
March 2016.
“Genesis 1.” Bible Gateway. Web. Accessed on 31 March 2016.
Rothman, Lily. “Johnny Depp as Tonto: Is the Lone Ranger Racist?” TIME Magazine. 3 July 2013. Web. Accessed on 31 March
2016.
Hey there, I really enjoyed reading your post!
I like how you explored how King not only took the opportunity to critique how the Christian creation stories were biased against women and then flipped it in his own version and had Ahdamn be the mistaken one. What do you think King was trying to achieve by this flipping?
Hi Natalie. Thanks for commenting on another way to look at King’s version of the story, I has not thought of it as a critique. I think that King is trying to make his readers question the automatic authority that the Genesis story has while the Aboriginal creation stories have a more fiction/fantasy type of reception. I think he wants us to give both stories an equal place, at least in terms of literary value. Because even for those of us readers not brought up in Christian backgrounds, being in a country with such a strong religious-based history like Canada has left colonial imprints on just about every aspect of society. Interestingly enough, it was just today I was reading that schools in Abbotsford are being petitioned to remove the Bibles from the school…something I didn’t realize was still a thing in public schools. https://ca.news.yahoo.com/blogs/dailybrew/bc-atheist-group-seeks-end-to-bible-distribution-192155065.html?nhp=1
also, I think heis asking readers to look at the way different creation stories affect the communities it influences or touches. A man or woman being first, the descent to Earth being intentional or not..all of these have such tremendous effect. I think King is asking readers to see how listening to different creation stories can affect perspective in many ways. He probably wants us to listen to all…to hear all the stories.
Hi Maryam,
I enjoyed reading your post, and appreciated your comment about how King rewrites the European identities of the four Indians and their names. I think it’s so interesting that both Robinson Crusoe and Ishmael, as original characters not the Indians, had native sidekicks. What effect do you think King’s flipping could have on these relationships?
Hi Emma! Yes, I found this really interesting too. All four characters…Lone Ranger and Hawkeye too, had native sidekicks. And yeah, I did not even realise the other two literary characters had either, only after reading Jane Flick’s notes.
I think King’s doing this asks readers a serious question: was it being white/European that made them the hero? Or could an Aboriginal person be responsible for the good,etc they did? Because readers were very aware of how important the info from the native sidekicksprove, in fact it’s obvious that without them the hero would have died. Yet, Friday and Tonto and the others are still part of the periphery for readers. King is asking us…how come? After reading this, I asked myself that? Why don’t I remember Friday as the guy who saved Robinson’s life…why do I remember Robinson as a survivalist when he clearly wasn’t? It makes us ask the question of how prejudices, etc can shape an authors work and a reader’s perception inherently…creating a cycle.
Hi Maryam,
I enjoyed reading your post this week! I especially liked your observation of how King intertwines the Native and Christian creation stories. What do you think his purpose is in doing this? I am inclined to think it has to do with his themes of decolonization in combining the two stories and showing multiple truths. What do you think?
Thanks!
Nicole
Hi Nicole! I definitely agree with your comment. I think King intertwined the story…turning them into two equal parts of a new creation story…to ask readers to look at both stories in the same way. I think he wants us to question the implicit authority the Genesis story gets and to consider how listening to both stories with the same mindset will allow us to see the two cultures in different ways. It allows us to start breaking down the effects of colonization slowly…in a way opening the chance for starting back at the beginning of the circle…at chapter 1 instead of 15.
Hi Maryam,
Thanks for your well articulated summary of your section. In my section I commented on Alberta’s experience with the western medical system as she goes through the process of getting artificially inseminated. I was reminded of Lionel’s experience with the medical system as a child and felt there must be a connection of some kind. I noticed that King emphasizes a disconnect between Alberta and the medical community, an inability to make herself heard. I hadn’t thought about the residential school experience and the “we know best” attitude you speak of, but I feel it could be connected to Alberta’s experience as well. Did you think at all about the contrast King might be trying to portray between traditional indigenous medicine and western medicine?
Thanks again!
Sierra
Hi Sierra! The disconnect between the way the indigenous patients received care from the western medical system versus the traditional indigenous system is one that I immediately picked up on. And thanks for mentioning Alberta’s experience…I hadn’t noticed that.
I think King is trying to show how the colonial prejudices have become systemic, entrenched in the very institutions of the country. He is showing how this young boy, without his mother, had a voice that was silenced by health professional after another because they could not hear him. But also, he is showing that this is a cyclical issue…even the indigenous people have been affected by the systemic prejudices such that some do not put much trust in their doctors either. He wants readers to see that not only do we have to listen, but we have to break down the barriers like residential schools, etc that stopped the indigenous peoples from telling and listening too.