Assignment 3:7 – Write a blog post that Hyperlinks my 10 pages of Green Grass Running Water
For this assignment, I chose pages 110 – 120 in Thomas King’s Green Grass Running Water. I feel this section of the novel is very topical to current political issues in British Columbia that I care about.
The selection starts with Eli Stands Alone, on page 110. As previously discussed in one of my posts, this character is a reference to Elijah Harper, an allusion to the Meech Lake Constitutional Accord in 1990 because of one vote by Elijah Harper (Manitoba Legislature) and resulted in blocking the Accord (Flick 1999). Eli receives a phone call from his sister, letting him know that his mother had died two weeks ago. One thing Eli can help with now is dealing with his mother’s house, says his sister. There was the matter that the government wanted to build a dam that would result in the tearing down of that house – page 112. When Eli arrives at the house, an engineering company is waiting, and intends to proceed with building the Grand Baleen Dam. I think this dam could be a reference to the Grand Coulee Dam which was also a point of bitter dispute between the government who wanted to build a dam and groups, including Native American, who were against it. The dam ended up flooding some Native American reserves and involved Canada because the river it affected was partially in Canada.
Page 113 reminded me of King’s lecture, “You’re not the Indian I had in mind” on CBC’s Ideas, when Norma says to Eli, “You were born there before you went off and became white”, referring to Eli moving to the city and getting a degree to be a professor. In the lecture, King talks about the concept of authenticity – how “Indian” or “white” a person is, depending on hour they’re portrayed. Eli explains that he’s a professor of literature, and I’m immediately reminded of this article.
On Page 116, the reference to “Parliament Lake” not only overlaps with the name of the Grand Coulee Dam reservoir called “Franklin Delano Roosevelt Lake” but the Canadian governmental name is ironically fitting.
King is a genius in my opinion. He not only masters the art of storytelling, but his layers upon layers of beautiful allusions and “trickster discourse” is awe-inspiring.
Works cited
“Elijah Harper.” TheCanadianEncyclopedia, 9 Dec. 2016, www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/elijah-harper/.
“Franklin D. Roosevelt Lake.” Wikipedia, 9 Dec. 2016, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franklin_D._Roosevelt_Lake.
“Grand Coulee Dam.” Wikipedia, 9 Dec. 2016, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_Coulee_Dam.
King, Thomas. Green Grass Running Water. Toronto: Harper Collins, 1993. Print.
“News and Information about the Site C Dam.” DeSmogCanada, 9 Dec. 2016, www.desmog.ca/site-c-dam-bc.
“The Truth About Stories – Part 2.” CBC, 9 Dec. 2016, www.cbc.ca/player/play/2398900691/.
Weber-Pillwax, Cora. “Orality in northern Cree indigenous worlds”. Canadian Journal of Native Education, 25.2 (2001): 149-165. Web. 9 Dec. 2016, search.proquest.com/openview/301b2fb96d526d6dac2468edaafaa8c3/1?pq-origsite=gscholar/.
