I am very excited to explore the allusions I found in the text of “Green Grass Running Water.” For my analysis, I have chosen pages 30-49. 

Lionel removes his tonsils out…

For my first analysis, I would like to examine the story Lionel tells of his mistake, removing his tonsils. This might be a bit of an oversight, but when I read the story, I related it back to societal relationships between Natives and White people.  Natives would be promised land, or benefits as a reconciliation gift, but in the long run, it turns out to be inconvenience after inconvenience, situations that make life harder for Natives. Let’s examine residential schools, Native families were told it was necessary to instill their children into boarding schools, to further their education and opportunities.  Many Natives resisted, just like how Lionel’s mother did not want his tonsils removed in the beginning, but eventually caved in. This single action caused Lionel to suffer throughout his whole life; opportunities were taken away from him, and became a societal disability for him. It might be far fetched, but overall, I saw how this situation could symbolize the relationship between Natives and colonizers. 

Interaction between Narrator, God, and Coyote 

As Jane Flick points out in her reading notes, the God in this text resembles the voice of God in the Old Testament.  He questions where his darkness is, the void and the garden, which clearly refers to the Adam and Eve story in the bible; the “Genesis” story.  At one point God says no one can eat his food, which might allude to how Eve ate the apple, which became known as the Original sin. When the Narrator is talking about a world where the First woman falls and meets grandmother Turtle, and starts creating land, he is alluding to the Earth Diver Story, which is the Creation Story told by Natives.  While this may seem obvious, what I would like to point out is the interaction overall. No one seems to be able to agree with how the story is going, which is symbolic of present time, how different religions do not agree about the Creation story. There are different beliefs and values and we have differentiated opinions which can cause tension amongst people, just like with the characters. 

Conversation Alberta has with Charlie, about flying to Edmonton 

Jane Flick points out that Alberta might be named Alberta to represent the province.  Alberta’s conversation with Charlie was interesting, and I thought about how Charlie represents Western values such as materialism and possession (Flick 151). Lionel has a promising future, until certain circumstances took that away from him.  Alberta is in between both. This might represent the growing tensions in Alberta, during colonization.  There were different value systems, and “gaps of rich and poor and division of economic power.  As the source that I have hyperlinked finds, “Political and economic power was concentrated in the hands of a small elite who reaped the benefits of economic growth/ In contrast some frontier construction camps, and resource towns such as Lovettville and Cadomin, Alberta, led to the emergence of a workers’ resistance movement” (Friesen 2017). 

 

 

Works Cited 

 

Flick, Jane. Reading Notes for Thomas King’s Green Grass, Running Water. Canadian Literature, 1999, blogs.ubc.ca/engl372-99c-2019wc/files/2013/11/GGRW-reading-notes1.pdf.

 

Friesen, Gerald. History of Settlement in the Canadian Prairies. The Canadian Encyclopedia, 23 Dec. 2019, www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/prairie-west.

“Boarding Schools.” Native American History and Culture: Boarding Schools – American Indian Relief Council Is Now Northern Plains Reservation Aid, American Indian Relief Council , www.nativepartnership.org/site/PageServer?pagename=airc_hist_boardingschools.