Blog Post #10: GGRW Character Analysis
Write a blog that hyper-links your research on the characters in GGRW using at least 10 pages of the text of your choice.
For this assignment, I will be analyzing pages 39 to 49 from Green Grass Running Water 2007 edition.
The section begins with Coyote and GOD/dog talking about the Sky World and Water World. According to Jane Flick and multiple other scholars, Coyote is referred to as a mythological trickster figure (143). Coyote is extremely prominent in First Nations and Native American myths, and is even seen as a local legend to many Indigenous communities. To the contrary, GOD “is not the world’s prime mover but the product of Coyote dreaming” (McGill 243). Flick also notes that GOD is a “backward kind of dog” both figuratively in that a dog is a “lesser form of coyote” and literally, as dog spelt backwards is god. The small caps for GOD are perhaps utilized to demonstrate power and emphasis, and denote an original term for God, similar to how small caps are used in Genesis for LORD.
The next introduced character is the First Woman, who has parallels to Charm in the Native creation story described by King in The Truth About Stories: A Native Narrative. Both fall from the Sky/Sky World, are helped by animals in the Water World, stay on a turtle’s back, and use mud in order to create nearby land. Flick mentions that the First Woman is a variant of the Earth Diver story (i.e. Charm). Additionally however, the First Woman can be seen as an allusion to the Judeo-Christian creation story of Adam and Eve. The First Woman makes a garden, lives there with Ahdamn, eats lots of food from a tree and brings some to Ahdamn to eat, making GOD both upset and possessive. In this example, the First Woman can be seen as Eve, the garden as the Garden of Eden, Ahdamn as Adam, and eating from the tree that results in God being upset is the Tree of Knowledge.
The next section then jumps into describing Alberta’s love triangle with Lionel and Charlie. The name Alberta Frank, according to Flick, suggests the province in Western Canada and perhaps King’s fondness for this area since he both lived and taught there for ten years (144). Her surname of Frank also alludes to her frank character in the text (Flick 144).
Frank’s first “boy-toy” Lionel Red Dog, is a Blackfoot Indian and her second beau, also a Blackfoot Indian, is his cousin Charlie Looking Bear. Taking a step away from analyzing their names, I believe their significance in this discussion lies in their personal identity and stories on the “White-versus-Indian” spectrum (Bechtel 208). Lionel for examples, idolizes a Hollywood cowboy John Wayne. Charlie on the other hand, serves as the lawyer for a firm working against land/water rights of Blackfoot Indians. Both of these characters demonstrate how they have been “trapped by the stories that have come to dominate their worlds” and in turn, define themselves as “Indian” or “not-Indian” according to the aforementioned spectrum (Bechtel 208). These two figures then, are alluding to the issues that some Indigenous peoples face in their personal crises with their identity.
Moving on, Dr. John Eliot and Dr. Joe Hovaugh come into the text. They are talking about the disappearance of Indians and trying to discover a pattern in history. This pattern involves disappearance of Indians near real life disaster dates, such as the 1988 Yellowstone fires. Largely however, I believe such disappearances are alluding to the reality of missing Indigenous peoples, especially women, even in today’s world.
Beginning with the characters then, Dr. Joe Hovaugh, is quite evidently a play on words for Jehovah, a sacred name that God used to reveal Himself (in the Bible). The other doctor then, Dr. John Eliot, possibly alludes to missionary John Eliot, according to Flick (148). Eliot was a Puritan missionary and the “Apostle to the Indians” in Massachusetts (Flick 148). Dr. Hovaugh is trying to convince Dr. Eliot to create death certificates for four Indians who have disappeared, which I believe is a reference to the following four:
the Lone Ranger, Ishmael, Robinson Crusoe, and Hawkeye, who end off this particular section on page 49. According to Joel Deshaye, “These deities name themselves after characters in ‘imperial master-narratives’ that have race as a major theme” (75). For instance, the Lone Ranger is a “masked man with [a] faithful Indian companion” and is the hero of a series of western books, tv shows, and movies (Flick 141). Ishmael was the son of Abraham and his concubine Hagar, who grew up to be an important figure in religions such as Islam. As Flick mentions, Ishmael is also a character in Moby Dick and is friends with a “cannibal” native (142-3). Robinson Crusoe is a reference to the hero in Defoe’s 1954 movie Robinson Crusoe, who is helped by the “savage” that he rescues and then converts to Christianity (Flick 142). Lastly, Hawkeye is another Indian name, a famous frontier hero, and is also accompanied by a faithful Indian companion (Flick 141-2). Through all of these allusions and references, I can see Deshaye’s point, in how all four of these deities are “paired with indigenous, colonized sidekicks” (75).
In this analysis and throughout the remainder of Green Grass Running Water, it is clear that Thomas King is a very clever author and has made allusions to religions, historical events, pop culture, and so on. One thing that I have noted however, is that King makes many discrete references to Christianity and all that it encompasses. A question for my classmates then is – why do you think this is so?
Works Cited
“Adam and Eve.” Encyclopaedia Britannica, https://www.britannica.com/biography/Adam-and-Eve-biblical-literary-figures. Accessed 16 March 2019.
Bechtel, Greg. “The Word for World Is Story: Syncretic Fantasy as Healing Ritual in Thomas King’s Green Grass, Running Water.” Journal of the Fantastic in the Arts, vol. 19, no. 2, 2008, pp. 204-223.
Busby, Brian. “Thomas King.” The Canadian Encyclopedia, https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/thomas-king. Accessed 16 March 2019.
Chalhotra, Simran. “Blog Post #9: Adam & Eve vs. Charm, the Twins, & the Animals.” 10 March 2019, https://blogs.ubc.ca/simranchalhotra/2019/03/10/blog-post-9-adam-eve-vs-charm-the-twins-the-animals/. Accessed 16 March 2019.
Cohen, Sharon. “#NotInvisible: Why are Native American women vanishing?” AP News, https://www.apnews.com/cb6efc4ec93e4e92900ec99ccbcb7e05. Accessed 16 March 2019.
Dempsey, Hugh. “Blackfoot Confederacy.” The Canadian Encyclopedia, https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/blackfoot-nation. Accessed 16 March 2019.
Flick, Jane. “Reading Notes for Thomas King’s Green Grass, Running Water.” Canadian Literature, vol. 161/162, 1999, pp. 140-172.
“Garden of Eden.” Encyclopaedia Britannica, https://www.britannica.com/topic/Garden-of-Eden. Accessed 16 March 2019.
Greenwood, Kyle. “Tree of Knowledge.” Bible Odyssey, https://www.bibleodyssey.org/en/passages/related-articles/tree-of-knowledge. Accessed 16 March 2019.
Hansen, Liane, and Laura Krantz. “Remembering The 1988 Yellowstone Fires.” National Public Radio, https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=94126845. Accessed 16 March 2019.
Hatch, Kevin. “Home Is Where Your Rump Rests.” 28 January 2019, https://blogs.ubc.ca/kevinhatch/2019/01/28/home-is-where-your-rump-rests/?fbclid=IwAR11AWFn0EDjoXqfenSYgoEi7K-glBy-pm5wU03xSdc2BRNv7wD4oBnPTWQ. Accessed 2 February 2019.
Jackson, Wayne. “LORD and Lord: What’s the Difference?” Christian Courier, https://www.christiancourier.com/articles/305-lord-and-lord-whats-the-difference. Accessed 16 March 2019.
“Jehovah.” Bible Study Tools, https://www.biblestudytools.com/dictionary/jehovah/. Accessed 16 March 2019.
“John Eliot.” Encyclopaedia Britannica, https://www.britannica.com/biography/John-Eliot-British-missionary. Accessed 16 March 2019.
Mandel, David. “Ishmael.” My Jewish Learning, https://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/ishmael/. Accessed 16 March 2019.
McGill, Robert. “Against Mastery: Teaching Thomas King’s Green Grass, Running Water.” The Cambridge Journal of Postcolonial Literary Inquiry, vol. 3, no. 2, 2019, pp. 241-254.
“Meet Coyote, an Indigenous ‘Legend’.” Indigenous Tourism BC, https://www.indigenousbc.com/blog/meet-coyote-an-aboriginal-legend/. Accessed 16 March 2019.
Movies Cartoons. “Robinson Crusoe Full English Movie 1954 [HD].” YouTube, 11 Dec. 2014, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1YdOwnNAal4.
Hi Simran!
I do agree that GOD is likely capitalized because of the Biblical notation, and it was great to read that you also caught that women are prominent parts of Indigenous myths. In response to your question, GGRW truly is an eclectic mix of pop culture, humour, and culture, but there is most definitely a religious overtone. I feel that these are incorporated because of the constant battle between the validity of the Judeo-Christian narrative vs Indigenous myths. By putting Christian elements into an Indigenous text, King is able to juxtapose the two together and poke fun at the former, while, in a sense, implying that organized religion is not as serious as traditional Eurocentrism makes it out to be.
Hi Katrina,
Thanks for your comment! I am really intrigued by your answer to my question. It is interesting to know your opinion, that the religious overtone of GGRW can be accredited to poking fun of Christian elements in a larger Indigenous text, and that organized religion is more “light” than traditional Eurocentrism. I definitely agree with you, in that King’s inclusion of Christian concepts in comparison to Indigenous elements is showing the former in a context that is more engaging and much less serious and structured.