Write a blog that hyper-links your research on the characters in GGRW using at least 10 pages of the text of your choice. 

I have to say the section of the book that stuck with me the most as I was reading it was pages 214-223. I think this was an absolutely perfect intersection of so many stories and evoked so many different feelings for me that it honestly felt like the climax of the book, even though it was only halfway through. This is the short section that has all of our major players, separate from each other, all viewing the same Western movie, at the same point in time, but all from a different perspective. King does such an incredible job in this short sequence of placing all of the characters in their own context and providing their own lens to view this same Western story, and also showing that they all react differently to it.

The first page of this sequence is from the viewpoint of Alberta. The scene in the movie is when the Indians whip their horses into the river, but she turns it off before anything further happens. I think this is a intentional stopping point by King. Alberta is trapped in her decision between Lionel and Charlie, just like the Indians are trapped in the river between John Wayne on one side and the troop  of soldiers behind them on the other side. Jane Flick suggest’s that Alberta Frank has a double meaning for King and that she represents not only the province, but that fact that her personality is also quite “frank”. This can even be seen on page 214 with Alberta’s quick decision to simply shut the Western off the tv because it was “the last thing in the world she needed to do”.

Next up is Latisha. She also turns the movie off at the exact same point, but for a completely different reason. She is sitting watching with her children. She doesn’t want to see the Indians in the movie be slaughtered as the cavalry descends on them, again with the white John Wayne on the other bank, ensuring that they have no escape. She reassures her son Christian that the movie is over before the scene plays out to spare him having to see this reenactment of what was done to many Native people. Her son’s name is an obvious allusion to christianity. As I read the book I took Christian to be a representation of the assimilation that was done to the Natives in our country. He is a Native child with a settler’s name, and with the allusion to christianity we are forced to think of him as such throughout the book.

From here we move to Lionel. At this point in the story he has already been lectured numerous times by Norma to straighten out his life. She keeps suggesting that there’s something missing for him and that eventually he’ll figure it out and come home, but Lionel just can’t hear what she’s trying to say. This passage ends with “But Lionel saw non of this. He lay in the chair, his head on his chest, the tumbling light pouring over him like water”(216). This reference to water again by King is a way of suggest to us that Lionel has spent so much time away from the reserve and in Western culture, that he can no longer absorb information presented fluidly like Native story-telling. Like water. Instead of drinking it up, it just washes over him. He isn’t watching, he isn’t listening, and he isn’t thinking correctly when taking in information.

Charlie is our next character to be enjoying this Western simultaneously with the rest of our characters. Charlie gets something completely different out of this scene. He is reminded of family, and of his father. Shortly after this scene, Charlie decides he wishes to reunite with his father, and attempts to reach out to him where he lives in the West Edmonton Mall. As Flick points out, this is one of the most commercial and materialistic places in Alberta if not Canada, and is a symbol of Charlie’s materialistic nature. At the same time though, it is where his dad lives, and he’s trying to get through all of that to reach him.

We then get a short excerpt from Eli’s perspective. All we get here though is a reference to Iron Eyes, Charlie’s father Portland, but with his “really Indian” name for the movies. King’s use of this is to bring our awareness to how Western culture views Natives, and that they are all the same. Western culture has this idea of what a Native is supposed to be, and stereotypes are generated from this. And I’m not the Indian you had in mind.

Bill Bursum is after that with him celebrating and exulting his glorious Map. Bill’s crowning achievement in this story is The Map, and it seems quite fitting for this to be the case for the white character in the book that King is using to reference both Holm Bursum, who was very interested in defining the map of New Mexico, and Buffalo Bill (William Cody) who exploited Indians for his tv show.

Babo is the next central character to follow. She is alone in her hotel room when she finds this same Western that the rest of our characters are watching. Although she is the first to notice that the 4 old Indians are in the movie, as she recognizes the red shirt of Robinson Crusoe. It is suggested that Babo is the descendent of Babo Jones from the story “Benito Cereno”. She mentions in Green Grass Running Water that her grandfather used to work on a ship and was a barber. This is confirmation of this idea as Babo Jones was indeed a barber on the San Dominick, and is the one who leads the revolt on the ship so that it sails to their freedom in Africa.

Dr. Hovaugh appears on the next page. King suggests that Dr. Hovaugh has sympathy for the Indians as he was “moved by their plight…caught between the past and Western expansion”. As Flick points out again, this is another obvious allusion to Jehovah from Christian theology, who also happens to drive a white convertible. quite similar in idea to that of the Pope in his Pope-mobile which were traditionally white in colour as well. Dr. Hovaugh believes that he is helping the 4 Indians by tracking and keeping them in the hospital, which can be linked to the idea that Christians thought they were helping Natives by putting them in residential schools.

The final page then brings to us the 4 Old Indians: The Lone Ranger, Robinson Crusoe, Hawkeye, and Ishmael. These are all allusions to other characters, stories, and ideas. In Green Grass Running Water they are also watching this same movie and see it as troublesome and therefore need to go and fix it. That way they can fix the world a little bit. The Lone Ranger is a reference to the character the Lone Ranger, the renegade lawman from the West.Robinson Crusoe is a reference to the story of Robinson Crusoe and his companion Friday, the “savage” that he christianizes. Hawkeye is a reference to the faithful Indian companion of Chingachgook from the Last of the Mohicans. Finally Ishmael is a reference to Moby Dick, to the character that survived by floating on the coffin of Queequeg, his Indian companion. Essentially all of these references are to white characters who are better off because of/try to improve the “Indian savage” stereotype in some way.

It is interesting to see how this full passage plays out. By bringing together so many characters and intersecting them with the same story is a very interesting way of showing us the different motivations and viewpoints of the various characters. Doing this while also referencing so many characters from outside of the book really creates this portal within his book where, really anybody could view this scene and be impacted in some meaningful way. It is the a true intersection.