Coyote Pedagogy is a term sometimes used to describe King’s writing strategies (Margery Fee and Jane Flick). Discuss your understanding of the role of Coyote in the novel.
Thomas King’s Green Grass, Running Water, is, without hyperbole, one of the most complex, layered, and nuanced novels I have ever read, making it impossible to comprehensively unpack the full significance and role of Coyote. However, I will do my best to address some of the thoughts that I had whilst reading about Coyote’s function as a character. One thing I found fascinating about Coyote is his dual role as both a surrogate reader and a catalyst for crucial plot events. Without Coyote, the story would, in some sense, not exist. The novel’s opening and closing frame involves the ‘I’ figure, who I will henceforth call the storyteller, telling a story to Coyote; it might be said that we read as voyeurs, listening to a story that is simultaneously meant for us and not meant for us. Hence, Coyote is the reason the story exists, or at least the reason that we as readers are hearing it. Since King is relying on a worldview that may not be familiar to readers of the Western tradition, Coyote functions as an interlocutor on our behalf, asking questions and allowing us to gain access to the story.
However, Coyote is not only a passive receiver of story – he also has a direct impact on the events of the plot, especially in the latter half of the novel. In fact, the novel’s climax is a direct result of Coyote’s actions: the earthquake that breaks the dam and kills Eli Stands Alone is the immediate, though seemingly unintended, result of Coyote’s dancing and singing. Thus, Coyote is both a receptacle for the story and a main actor in it. This creates what might be called a symbiotic relationship between Coyote and the story – neither can really exist in its presented form without the other. Given Thomas King’s statement that “the truth about stories is that that’s all we are,” I think that Coyote’s role in Green Grass, Running Water is at least partially to illustrate the ways that stories affect us, but also the ways that we effect stories (Stories 2). Stories, Coyote seems to be showing us, do not exist in a vacuum; stories and people create webs that are interconnected and mutually dependent.
I would also note here that Coyote is the reason for a lot of the cycles that are perpetuated throughout the novel. The fact that he is unwilling to listen to the storyteller results, more than once, in the storyteller having to restart his story. As Professor Paterson has pointed out, the story of the First Woman, in its many iterations, is also “the story of Indigenous resistance against European forms of oppression and colonization” (Paterson n.p). Thus, this dismissal or refusal to listen to Indigenous story, which even Coyote is apt to, encourages the repetition of these cycles of oppression. This is especially fitting when we consider that several of the white characters in the novel “don’t listen when they should” (Flick and Fee 132). By Coyote’s refusing to listen, or, if we’re being more charitable, his playful lack of concentration, the storyteller is forced to tell the same story (of Indigenous oppression as resistance) over and over again. Nowhere is this connection made clearer than when the storyteller explicitly says that it is because Coyote “must have been sitting on those ears” that “this world has problems” (Green Grass 100). Thus, my takeaway is that it will not be until we all learn to listen that we will move past these cycles of oppression. By listening to story specifically, we can effect change in the real world, and by creating change in the real world, we can change what kind of stories it is that we tell. In this context, storytelling is an act of colonial resistance. Thus, Coyote, in his dual role as both story-shaper and listener, embodies this mutual relationship between the real world and the story world.
Works Cited
Flick, Jane, and Margery Fee. “Coyote Pedagogy: Knowing Where the Borders Are in Thomas King’s Green Grass, Running Water.” Canadian Literature 161/162 (1999): 131-39. Print.
King, Thomas. Green Grass, Running Water. Toronto: HarperPerennial Canada, 2007. Print.
King, Thomas. “‘You’ll Never Believe What Happened’ Is Always a Great Way to Start.” The Truth About Stories: A Native Narrative. Toronto: Anansi, 2007. 1-29. Print.
Marshall, Lannah. “Narrative Techniques: Audience Surrogates.” Thanet Writers. 26 Oct. 2017. Web. 19 Mar. 2021.
Paterson, Erika. “Lesson 3.2.” English 372 99C Canadian Studies. WordPress. Web. 19 Mar. 2021.
Sium, Aman, and Eric Ritskes. “Speaking Truth to Power: Indigenous Storytelling as an act of Living Resistance.” Decolonization: Indigeneity, Education, & Society 2.1 (2013): I-X. Print.
Hi Victoria,
Your vivid analysis of Coyote and his dual roles made me think of Thomas King himself; isn’t he deliberately being a Trickster with his writing? He is always stirring up extreme opposites: his satiric humour, often hilarious, is actually about some of the most tragic of histories; his characters, at times childish, then are heroic and then childish again. The subject matter itself varies from sublime faith to ridiculous Western movie massacres. It seems to me it can only be deliberate.
Cheers!
Hi Joseph, I love this thought as King as a trickster in his writing! I absolutely agree and hadn’t thought about it from this perspective before. King seems to love to play with his readers – we see that even in the puns that he uses for names – and is always seeking to shake up how we see the world. Thanks so much for your comment!
Hi Victoria,
I liked how you approached Coyote in this post. Previously I had been thinking of Coyote as largely comic relief, offering causal explanation for little other than entertainment between scenes. But as you had pointed out, his role is huge when it comes to the shape that the story takes. Without Coyote, the story wouldn’t have these stopping moments and interruptions that fill in the gaps in the narrative, and there wouldn’t be this repetition in story format that you point out serves to show how oppression in the novel is expressed again and again, echoing history.
I wonder if this was an intentional way of creating excuses to use the storyteller’s technique of repetition and elaboration. Where with Harry Robinson, the repetition came naturally out of his storytelling style, in ‘traditional’ literature, it is hard to get away with that same technique of keeping the audience in a particular moment. I wonder if this was intentionally designed to prevent readers from skimming, to keep them in the moment of the text, the way that Robinson would.
Hi Zac,
Thanks for the comment! I do think you’re onto something with your last few statements. In another blog post, I speak about how it is specifically the moments where Coyote appears in the narrative that we most see Robinson’s influence of oral story-telling, including, as you point out, a lot of repetition. I don’t think this is an accident; it is Coyote who is most closely connected to this oral storytelling tradition that King is drawing on. I think Coyote offers a way for Thomas King to revisit the themes he is most intent on exploring in a way that feels natural to the story; by using Coyote as a frame, it makes sense to return to this frame at various points in the story. Knowing how intelligent King is, I’m sure that he was fully aware of the way that he was leveraging this frame story to, as you say, “use the storyteller’s technique of repetition and elaboration.” So, I think you’re right in suggesting that this is an intentional design!
Hi Victoria,
I completely agree – Green Grass, Running Water is astonishingly layered, nuanced, and complex! Which makes it that much more fascinating to discuss and unravel. Each time I read through everyone’s posts, I discover something new about the novel – and that holds true here! Your dissection of Coyote’s role in the novel was enlightening; the idea of the “dual role as both story-shaper and listener” dovetails perfectly with the status of King’s novel as embodying the space between written and oral literature, Western and Native cultures, and story and reality. The fact that Coyote is the driving force behind many of the cycles in the novel may offer a further layer: if Coyote is an audience surrogate, could King perhaps be suggesting the audience is responsible for these cycles? And, if so, could King be raising the possibility for audiences to realize their potential for transformation and rebirth (as symbolized by cycles), if they are able to break out of the oppressive cycles caused by a lack of listening?
Hi Magdalena,
I agree with you that it is so wonderful to read everyone’s blog posts and learn something new every time – it really feels like there is no end to the new things that can be said and analyzed in this masterful novel. I also think you’re astute in pointing out that by making Coyote the audience surrogate, King is deliberately transferring some blame to readers. There are moments where Coyote does seem to express some colonial values: for example, when he says “Who would want to be Indian?… not me, either.” (King 395). This moment (which I’m honestly not sure how much to read into), along with the fact that there are several moments throughout the novel where the white characters seem to having a one-sided conversation with themselves rather than an actual conversation with one of the Indigenous characters, indicates that King does seem to be suggesting that by our consistent refusal to listen (via Coyote, our surrogate), we are the one’s responsible for perpetuating these cycles. As for his “raising the possibility for audiences […] to break out of the oppressive cycles,” I do think that King is offering us this option. The novel closes the same way that it opens – with water everywhere and with the story-teller saying he will tell us a story – but, the book does end (as all books must). Maybe this is too metatextual, but I feel like King is saying that it is up to us whether we want to hear the same story of Indigenous oppression, or if we are ready to change the story. After all, by reaching the end of the novel, we have theoretically listened to it, and have taken the first step of this project. So, if we have finally learned to listen, we can begin to rewrite this story – but if we haven’t, we might as well open the book back to the first page and start again!
Thank you for the thought-provoking question!
Great analysis of Coyote’s role in this story, Victoria! I especially liked your description of how Coyote is both a passive listener (thought not a very good listener) that prompts the story to be retold, and an active participant creating change within the story.
I was wondering as I was finishing the book the other day about how the different characters in the story see Coyote and what that says about them. Certain characters have a familiar relationship with Coyote (storyteller, Four Old Indians/Four Women), others seem to see Coyote as a common dog creature (Babo sees a yellow dog sniffing at her car tires, Lionel sees a yellow dog dancing in the rain) and other times Coyote seems invisible to other characters like the scene in Bursum’s store with Eli and Lionel and the Four Indians (p. 145-148). In this scene Coyote speaks to The Four Indians and even uses the phone. But the other characters make no mention or him or a dog at all.
Maybe this can be easily chalked up to Coyote’s shapeshifter ways. What do you think?
Hi Laura,
I was wondering the same thing about Coyote throughout the story, and I wasn’t able to come up with a satisfying answer when I was writing the blog post, but I will try again now! I admit I had forgotten about Coyote’s shapeshifting abilities; I definitely think that this explains at least some instances of these appearances. However, I think it is also worth noting that it is the characters who are most removed from the modern time frame that are always able to both see and recognize Coyote. The storyteller is removed from the modern narrative, The First Woman is the character of a what seems to be a timeless story, and the Four Indians have mysterious origins: they seem to have been alive since at least 1883, and their escapes from the psychiatric hospital coincide with some major natural disasters (like earthquakes!). Thus, maybe there is some element of answer here, though I’m not sure exactly what. Maybe some commentary on the way that as Indigenous people are oppressed and their narratives are systematically erased, Coyote becomes in danger of becoming unrecognizable or disappearing in the more modern time frame?
This is a super complex question, and I thank you for asking it! I just wish I had a more concrete answer – though I wonder if such a thing is even possible with this book…
Another great post, Victoria. I’d been thinking of analyzing coyote pedagogy for this assignment but I chose another question – King’s treatment of the Coyote character is fascinating. I did a bit of research into the Coyote figure when I’d been thinking of analyzing him for my blog and came across a journal article by Cutcha Risling Baldy, “Coyote is not a metaphor” (linked below), analyzing the colonization and appropriation of the “Coyote” figure, resulting in his being identified with a universal trickster archetype, thus rendering him more as a metaphor than the figure of great reverence, knowledge, and history that he traditionally has been and continues to be in Indigenous traditions.
You note how King’s Coyote is strangely perpetuative of the “cycles” of oppression that you make mention of – and I think this is vital to understanding King’s treatment of both Indigenous and Western/Christian figures. Is King portraying Coyote as being appropriated by colonialist ideology? You write that Coyote does not “listen” to Indigenous story – and I think that verb choice is important, bringing into play the intricacies of orality and/vs literacy, the erasure of Indigenous oratory, the evolution of voice into text. Is King’s Coyote refusing to value orality?
Baldy writes of how “Coyote First Person stories are unsettling and can be utilized as a tool for decolonization in Indigenous communities” (2). In the traditional Indigenous stories of the figure of Coyote First Person (not the “Coyote” that Westerners are familiar with), there is a decolonizing act of Indigenous resistance, an epistemological, historical, spiritual formation of Indigeneity. In the creation of the trickster metaphor of Coyote, there is a colonial universalizing of a figure that is, for First Nations, a vital competent of Indigenous knowledge-keeping. Coyote’s importance as a complex figure of decolonial pedagogy and cultural resistance is erased, and he remains as nothing more than a “tricker” animal symbol, representative of the mystical wonder of the vanishing “Indian.”
So, do you think King is aware of all this? Is he being subversive with his portrayal of Coyote? Perhaps there’s no one right answer. As you say yourself, King’s novel is highly complex and full of nuance. He subverts allusion and story and confronts colonial and decolonial knowledges and forces us towards a greater understanding of what it means to tell a story, and what it means to listen.
Baldy, Cutcha Risling. “Coyote is not a metaphor: On decolonizing, (re)claiming and (re)naming Coyote.” Decolonization: Indigeneity, Education & Society, vol. 4, no. 1, 2015, pp. 1-20, http://indigenouslanguagelearning.ca/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/Baldy-C-R_2015_Coyote-is-not-a-metaphor-On-decolonizing-reclaiming-and-renaming-Coyote.pdf.
Hi Leo,
Thank you so much for the link to this article, it is a really fascinating read. I didn’t know a lot about the history of Coyote with colonial contact, so this was enlightening, especially re; the translation of Coyote First Person’s name. I also think that your closing comments are correct; it seems like with this novel, there can never really be one correct answer.
Regarding Coyote and orality, the first question you ask, I think maybe on some level he might be refusing to accept orality. As you point out, oral history is useless unless someone is listening (the same way that text is useless if no one is reading it); thus, Coyote’s periodic failure to engage with the story of the First Woman means that he is breaking the chain of communication that is essential to orality. Indeed, there is a moment specifically where Coyote seems to put more value on written text:
“‘She means Moby-Dick,’ says Coyote. ‘I read the book. It’s Moby-Dick, the great white whale who destroys the Pequod.’
‘You haven’t been reading your history,’ I tell Coyote” (King 196).
In this case, though, it seems that Coyote is actually guilty of not LISTENING to his history. Thus, Coyote does seem to be disregarding oral tradition, at least in some moments, which is ironic considering he is the product of a rich oral tradition, and that he has been passed on through oral storytelling. Thus, by making Coyote the one who disregards the oral story being told to him, it seems that King is indeed subverting Coyote’s role.
I would find it difficult to believe that King wasn’t aware of Coyote First Person – perhaps I am putting too much faith in him, but he seems to be the type to do a lot of research before writing, especially considering the historical research that went into this novel. King’s Coyote is endearing and passive, but also an agent that is capable of exerting immense force when he wants to; his final act of breaking the dam is an act of colonial resistance, I would say, but one that also inadvertently kills an Indigenous man. Thus, even this act of resistance is layered and complex. Thus, I’m not sure if I can really answer your question in a satisfying way; in some ways he is subverted, in other ways he seems to exhibit the traits of Coyote First Person as described by Baldy.
Honestly, I feel like I could think forever about Coyote and not come to a definitive conclusion about him – but I am glad that we get to have these dialogues that allow me to push my thinking further!