3:7 – Breaking Apart “Green Grass Running Water”

 

Phew, this is a long one. When you start dissecting this book, there is awful lot going on. I opened my book at random and started my analysis where the pages happened to settle, so we begin in the middle of the Changing Woman story on page 194 and continue to page 206.

Jane Flick tells us that the Changing Woman story comes from Navajo tradition where Changing Woman is a deity of “miraculous birth” (qtd. in Flick 152). Changing Woman here meets Ahab and Ishmael aboard the Pequod, the ship and characters famous from Herman Mellville’s Moby Dick. King characterizes Ahab as very bossy, rude and rule-following man while Ishmael seems to get off slightly easier. Perhaps this is because he also appears as one of the four old Indians who are trying to fix the narratives of Native colonization throughout the book. Pequod also cleverly ties to the Pequot Nation who were defeated in the Pequot War of 1637 (Flick 158).

The Europeans ask Changing Woman what her favourite month is, and though we don’t learn the answer, we do find out that one of Coyote’s favourite months is July, which makes sense as this is when Sun Dance is traditionally held.

Then the hunt for the great white whale begins and the hunters bring out their weapons which include, among spears and knives, juicers and blenders. I’m not sure what the deeper meaning here is supposed to be. Perhaps King is trying to keep the reader from getting too comfortable in the idea that Changing Woman is jumping into a story they already know? This is a new story with familiar characters. King could also be using this an aid in his efforts for narrative decolonization. As I discussed in my last blog, moments like this one that make the Europeans look ridiculous, take their power away and give it to the Native characters without any violent exchange.

As the hunters look for the great white whale they chant “Whaleswhaleswhaleswhalesbianswhalesbianswhaleswhales!” (195) Why is it important for us to know that A) the whale is female, and B) the whale is a lesbian? Flick suggests that this is a challenge to the female-less world of Moby Dick (158), but I have to wonder why that’s important to the progress of this novel. Most of the female characters in the novel are much stronger than the male ones. Alberta is dating two guys at once and wants a baby without their help, and Latisha is a single mother of three dealing with the scars from her violent, absentee husband while running a successful business –just to name a few. Perhaps this black lesbian whale is a dig at European literary culture where females are not traditionally prized as highly as males. This stands in stark contrast to Native literary and storytelling culture where many of the central characters are female.

Now we jump over to the Eli Stands Alone narrative, where Eli is reading a Western novel at home. What’s interesting here is that, even though he’s not enjoying the book and can predict how it’s going to end, he chooses to read on, thinking “This one might be different” (199). This again alludes to the contrast between Native and European literary culture, whereby Native stories vary from nation to nation and they can change based on the storyteller and environment, and European stories are rigid and unalterable (until they get in King’s hands that is).

As Eli remembers his trip to Sun Dance with Karen, we learn about his De Soto car that they rented for the journey. King has again chosen a significant brand of car because, as Flick tells us, Hernando De Soto was a Spanish Conquistador who traveled all over America causing trouble (158), just like the difficult rental which splutters and clunks all the way from Calgary to the festival.

An interesting moment was when Eli and Karen were entering the camp, Karen spotted a bird flying and asked “Is that an eagle?” to which Eli replied “No, it’s vulture” (203). The eagle appears a lot in Native art and stories as a majestic being that links the human and spiritual world and it’s interesting that King would populate the site of the Sun Dance with a very Western animal like a vulture instead. My guess would be that he is trying to make the Sun Dance more relatable to the reader: make it appear less like a ceremony that they can’t relate to or connect with if they aren’t native, but something that is inclusive of other backgrounds as well.

On his way out of camp, Eli’s sister Norma reminds him of an old friend Rita Morley (whom we don’t hear any more of but was an actress in the 50’s and 60’s) and gives him some sweetgrass to take (a rope of vanilla scented grass traditionally used in prayer).

Works Cited:

Flick, Jane. “Reading Notes for Thomas King’s “Green Grass Running Water”” Canadian Literature (1999): 140-72. UBC Blogs. Web. 22 July 2016.

King, Thomas. Green Grass, Running Water. Toronto: Harper Perennial Canada, 1999. Print.

2 Comments

  1. Hey Julia,

    I liked how you picked your section at random- it just goes to show that no matter where you land in the book, there will always be a back story. Thanks for parsing out the Moby Jane mystery, I was curious as to why King felt it necessary to tell us that the whale was a lesbian. I like that in this version of the narrative, Changing Woman and Moby Jane exist in a male-less world, swimming around in the water.

    I can’t help but compare Eli and Karen’s relationship to Latisha and George Morningstar’s relationship. Both Eli and Latisha bring their significant others to the Sun Dance, and I was a little wary of the enthusiasm that Karen showed for the event, but nothing bad resulted from it. Do you think Karen plays any other role in this novel other than highlighting Eli’s unwillingness to return home?

    Looking forward to your response,
    J

    1. Hey Julia,

      That’s interesting, because I never really thought to compare the two couples’ relationships and how each partner reacted to coming to Sun Dance. I definitely thought that King was setting us up for disaster with Karen being so excited about the festival, but you’re right, nothing bad happened at all. That side plot to do with Karen and Eli is interesting as well, and I’m not sure what significance it was supposed to bring to the overall plot. I suppose it does highlight his connection to Western society and his reluctance to return home. As well, I sort of like the idea that this novel, as well as having innumerable veiled references, is also just a fictional story about people, some of which happen to be Native and the events that happen in their lives. For me, this accounts for the cancer plot, because it doesn’t really add anything to the idea of decolonization or traditional native storytelling.

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