In response to Question #1:
Thomas King’s Green Grass Running Water is largely about returning home and the parallel narratives in the novel reflect that. I didn’t realize that the narratives were parallel until nearly the end of the book, but once the realist story of the contemporary characters and the story of the Coyote, Ishmael and the rest started to come together in real time in the plot, more
distinguishing parallels about the different narratives came through as well.
So as I stated earlier, the constant theme of “returning home” is something that all of the contemporary characters deal with in the novel. But I think “returning home” may be a little too simple to describe these character’s journey throughout the novel. This thought came to me while I was nearing the end of the novel in one of Eli’s flashback scenes. Karen hopes to go back to the Sun Dance, for Eli’s sake, so he can return home, to which Eli responds, “I am home” (King 344). This line really threw a wrench in my earlier reading of the character’s journeys, but strangely enough, I also started to understand the parallels of the contemporary characters and the narrative about the Changing Woman. For me at that moment in the reading, my original idea that the characters were on a pilgrimage home changed. I concluded that in both narratives, it’s not just about returning home physically, but being able to understand what “home” is.
So, why does King need to go back to the beginning of creation to tell us the story of the characters in the contemporary portion of the novel? Well, King’s playing with us a bit here, just like he did in the first novel we were assigned to read. The creation story is important in its own right, but I think that importance blinds readers to the reason it’s in the novel. It certainly blinded me. What I couldn’t figure out as I continued through the book is what the variations in the creation story had to do with the story itself, or really with anything in the novel. But the parallel between both of the narratives became clear in the end.
Just as Lionel, Eli, Alberta, Charlie, and Latisha are trying to grapple with the concept of home and their beginnings, so are the characters who are telling the creation story. There becomes sort of an understanding between both narratives. Many contemporary readers, including myself, view whatever creation story they heard growing up as a static story, one that doesn’t change. King plays with that notion. Just like the story of Eli, who came back from his “home” in Toronto to obstinately preserve his childhood home, or Lionel, who decides to quit his job and return to school, our stories are fluid. Why should the creation story or something like a John Wayne Western be any different?
Even more specifically are the references to other creation stories in the narrative about Changing Woman, namely the biblical references. The characters in the creation narrative are seemingly always bumping into other cultural influences, and are distracted from their original intention in their own story just as Norma and others on the reserve believe that Eli and Lionel are being pulled away from their roots by their career and life choices. I think what’s most important about this parallel is not solely that it exists, but rather, the characters who are influenced by other cultures in both narratives don’t necessarily understand the effects of everything they’re coming into contact with on their own story. ‘both the contemporary stories and the creation stories are presented as being written, rather than having already been written.
Work Cited:
King, Thomas. Green Grass Running Water. Toronto: Harper Collins, 1993. Print.
“The 2003 CBC Massey Lectures, ‘The Truth about Stories: A Native Narrative’ | Ideas with Paul Kennedy | CBC Radio.” CBCnews. CBC/Radio Canada, 17 July 2014. Web. 21 July 2014. <http://www.cbc.ca/ideas/massey-archives/2003/11/07/massey-lectures-2003-the-truth-about-stories-a-native-narrative/>.
“Earth on Turtle’s Back.” YouTube. YouTube, n.d. Web. 21 July 2014. <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZOxrvbA_KCE>.