{"id":47,"date":"2016-03-22T02:09:48","date_gmt":"2016-03-22T09:09:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/ourstory\/?p=47"},"modified":"2016-03-22T02:15:58","modified_gmt":"2016-03-22T09:15:58","slug":"47","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/ourstory\/2016\/03\/22\/47\/","title":{"rendered":"Oral Hyper-texting…Allusions in King’s novel (3.5: Q6)"},"content":{"rendered":"

The novel Green Grass, Running Water <\/em>is a unique type of literature, one that I have never encountered. Its introduction of the rich cultural knowledge of the First Nations is both a new reading experience and a journey of learning right through. After reading the lesson,I realized that reading this work out loud would result in a richer and better grasp of many of the concepts that Thomas King was trying to impart on his readers. Here are three of the allusions that stood out especially when read aloud:<\/p>\n

-1- First Woman and Ahdamn\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

First Woman herself is in reference to the first state of life: birth. But a few paragraphs later we are introduced to Ahdamn. When reading it aloud, readers suddenly hear ‘Adam’ as they read the name and the allusion falls into place.<\/p>\n

This is a reference back to the Christian European creation story in Genesis…that of Adam and Eve, the first man and woman. She comes from Sky Worl…which alludes to Heaven. But unlike that story, this one has done some significant things to the characters. The female is the one who came first, and Adam just appears later on…not Adam was created and then Eve. There is Sky World…but the other world is the First Nations story of Earth: a land of water where land is formed when the animals pack mud around Turtle’s shell. Also, it is not through the First Woman’s fault that she ends on land; rather this is a blameless story. Ahdamn makes fumbling mistakes in the naming of stuff and First Woman is trying to fix things and ends up falling out of the sky.<\/p>\n

It is an unwillingness of god’s part to share, not a temptation by her, that triggers the exit from the Sky World. And most importantly, they leave of heir own free will because of the “Christian rules” and are not kicked out.<\/p>\n

-2- “Eli Stand Alone”<\/strong><\/p>\n

In his willingness to be the sole opposition to the damn, Eli is a striking figure. He is an allusion to the equally memorable Elijah Harper, the Manitoba MLA and the only Aboriginal member who stood alone and opposed the Meech Lake Accord<\/a> with an eagle feather in his hand. The Accord had been negotiated without Aboriginal input and so this one man was able to stop the constitutional reforms. King uses the name to overtly carry these references, but even in his actions, Eli projects the image of the man who is not afraid to stand alone against what he sees as an injustice.<\/p>\n

-3- S. Moodie…aka Sue<\/strong><\/p>\n

This is a direct allusion to Susanna Moodie, a woman who became the embodiment of the frontier woman. I found it quite interesting that her mention in King’s work comes amidst the great debate about where Canada, America, and Europe intersect and where they diverge to create unique stories. Susanna Moodie was seen as doing this for Canada in her novel, Roughing it in the Bush<\/a><\/em>…she marked the point where literature moved from being by British about life in a land called Canada to being by Canadians about home.<\/p>\n

These are just some examples of the many allusion that Thomas King used…in fact just about every character name is a reinvention of some historical figure connected in some way to the story of the First Nations and other indigenous peoples. If readers approach this novel as any other book, the names will just be character names with no meaning beyond what’s on the pages. But for those who choose to read it out loud, they are given a second level of meanings, a richness obscured to those who did not choose orality as their medium.<\/em><\/p>\n

I think this is deliberate on King’s part…the indigenous literary culture tells and shares its stories orally. He wants his readers to experience his stories in the oral form, to benefit from what this type of literacy offers. Orality as literacy<\/a>…not the eurocentric view of orality as a step before literacy. It is a way that allows stories to adapt, to absorb the context, to always be relevant to the audience. And this is what King does. He takes elements from older stories and weaves them into newer stories, giving his story both the richness of the plot he is creating as well as that of the original stories they were taken from. <\/em><\/p>\n

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. <\/em><\/p>\n

Work Cited<\/p>\n

Hanson, Erin. “Oral Traditions.” Indigenous Foundations.<\/em> First Nations<\/p>\n

Studies Program at UBC. N.d. Web. Accessed on 21 March, 2016<\/p>\n

“Manitoba MLA Elijah Harper votes against Meech Lake Accord.” The <\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 National<\/em>. CBC Digital Archives. 12 June, 1990. Web. Accessed on 21<\/p>\n

March, 2016<\/p>\n

Moodie, Susanna. Roughing it in the Bush. <\/em>Ebook: Project Gutenburg.<\/p>\n

(2003). Web. Accessed on 21 March, 2016<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

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The novel Green Grass, Running Water is a unique type of literature, one that I have never encountered. Its introduction of the rich cultural knowledge of the First Nations is both a new reading experience and a journey of learning right through. After reading the lesson,I realized that reading this work out loud would result […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":38420,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-47","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/ourstory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/ourstory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/ourstory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/ourstory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/38420"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/ourstory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=47"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/ourstory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":52,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/ourstory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47\/revisions\/52"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/ourstory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=47"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/ourstory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=47"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/ourstory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=47"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}